


Shah Mat

by skybites



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Age Difference, Assassins & Hitmen, Burns, Canon-Typical Violence, Complicated Relationships, Drug Abuse, Eggsy Unwin & Roxy Morton Friendship, F/M, Foreign Language, Mental Health Issues, Original Character(s), POV Alternating, Past Relationship(s), Post V-Day, Slow Burn, Swearing, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2018-12-30 10:27:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 43,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12106731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skybites/pseuds/skybites
Summary: Merlin has been busy with regrouping Kingsman and making sure the world isn't threatened by another madman for more than a year. And it works out well enough, he thinks, so perhaps everything is going to settle down soon. When a hitman nearly kills him one night, it's time to reconsider.Unfortunately, it's pretty much downhill from there for the most part.





	1. An Incident

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been re-written.

 

> ****_If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something._
> 
> Murphy's Laws

 

He was glad for the soothing darkness that greeted him when he opened the door to his apartment. It eased the headache pounding in the back of his skull, although he was still feeling like someone was driving nails into his brain and simultaneously setting it on fire.

Slowly, he stepped inside the flat and pulled the door as quietly as possible shut behind him.

The clicking of the noise was still as loud as a gunshot, making him flinch.

Pain flared up, intense enough to leave him breathless for a moment.

He shouldn’t have neglected nearly every basic human need up to the point where he wanted to lay down and hope he wasn’t going to wake up for the next week, yes, but work kept piling up and someone _had to_ do it.

Even now, when he was so tired that he could barely stand, he would rather be at his desk in the headquarters than at home – or in a bed there, since he couldn’t help but worry he was too far away, that he wouldn’t make it back in time if there was an emergency. There had been plenty of emergencies in the last weeks.

But Eggsy and Roxy had insisted and it was hard to argue with them, especially if their arguments had seemed quite plausible at the time. They still did, certainly, and he wasn’t the kind of man to deny these things, yet …

Merlin sighed, closing his eyes for a moment, the black swallowing him whole, and as long as he didn’t think, it didn’t hurt as much, he noted, but not-thinking was something he simply couldn’t do, couldn’t allow himself to do. In particular not, since he had taken over the duties of Arthur.

It had been supposed to be temporary … temporarily unlimited until they agreed on a successor for Chester, which they still hadn’t one and a half years after his death – it was always just another mission, another job that had to be done immediately, and then another week had gone by, another month, with no room to breathe, with no end in sight.

The tensions sparked by the betrayal itself didn’t help either.

And … he still didn’t understand. Perhaps he was never going to. And perhaps he should leave it at that because there were no answers to be found in the dark of his own apartment in the middle of the night.

Still – he had been confident that he could judge people accordingly. He had known Chester for nearly half his life. Yet, he had been so wrong about this man; yet, he hadn’t noticed he would betray them; yet, he had never even considered that he could have been responsible for Harry’s death.

Sighing, he shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose.

For now, he needed to sleep.

Merlin took off his jacket and shoes, walking further into the room, not bothering with the lights. His head wouldn’t thank him for it, neither would his eyes, and he knew his way around well enough to rely on his memory.

The parquet silently creaked beneath his steps.

But … there weren’t only his.

Adrenaline rushed through his veins. He-

Knife on his throat. He froze.

Why hadn’t he- why hadn’t the alarm gone off?

“I hope you know how this works,” the intruder said. “Save your bullshit and give me a straight answer or I’ll cut your throat.”

Their voice was muffled, nearly drowned out by the frantic beating of his heart.

The blade swallowed the bright city lights. Fear replaced the rush of energy he had felt seconds ago.

“Let’s start easy,” they continued slowly. “Who are the other Kingsmen?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Merlin stated.

“Really?” they asked, the sarcasm dripping from their words. “I mean this secret, exclusive spy agency that’s really into discretion? Founded by tailors, agents running around in these fancy suits you British love so much, the stereotype gentlemen who can kick ass?”

He didn’t answer.

“Doesn’t ring a bell?” There … yes, there was confusion now and it sounded genuine enough that he believed it was real, but … it didn’t fit. They seemed to be a professional. Professionals didn’t mistake a target for another.

“No,” he answered after a moment, his stomach twisting in agony.

“Don’t fuck with me, _Merlin_ ,” they said. He could hear the smug smile. “I know what Kingsman is. I know who you are. Now, give me the real names of the other agents.”

He should have known better.

Analysis it was then.

His attacker had a knife, holding it to his throat. Probably more weapons. Definitely experience in situations like this.

He was at disadvantage and in a bad condition, so if he did anything, he better did it quickly.

A plan … he still had his-

His glasses. Right. And since they were transmitting the recordings right back to the headquarters, somebody had hopefully already alerted Eggsy and Roxy who had to be nearby.

“Oh, come on,” the stranger said. “Hurry up already.”

They … were smaller than him, judging from the way their arm pressed against his back.

First, he had to get rid of that knife.

Grabbing their arm wasn’t going to end well, neither was moving too much in general. Unless … he could move backwards, make them stumble, just … well, if he hit the liver …

Gradually, he raised his arm.

Merlin waited for a moment when he had brought it up to the right height.

“Swallowed your tongue?” they asked with a sigh, moving the blade closer.

He tilted his head back, tensing with a shaky breath.

Then he shoved his arm back. His elbow connected.

The knife hit the ground with a rattle.

He whirled around.

They were staggering backwards.

“Asshole,” they muttered, catching themselves too fast, already leaping forward, hand curled into fist, going for his face.

He stopped the attack with surprisingly little-

A painful blow to his calf caused him to lose balance. His opponent kneed him in the stomach, making him double over on the floor when he went down.

Shit.

Even if he was twenty years younger, he wouldn’t have been able to keep up with that speed.

Merlin stood up, launching himself forward, aiming at their temple.

They deflected the punch with their forearm, hitting his chin and forcing it back so hard he forgot to breathe.

He stumbled. An elbow connected with his chest. Something cut through his suit.

They withdrew. He regained his stand, panting, catching sight of … a dagger in their hand.

The knife was still on the floor.

He took a step in their direction, managing to catch their wrist, increasing the pressure on the nerve under his fingers. As expected, the weapon slit from their hand.

Next he knew was that he landed on the ground, the impact making him black out from the pain.

Heavy. On his chest.

They smashed his head against the floor. He groaned.

Metal against his throat. Knife. Cutting into his skin. Safety clicking off. Gun.

He stopped moving. His sight cleared.

The stranger sat on his chest, knee planted besides him, knife in one hand and gun in the other.

“One last chance,” they … no, she warned. “Give me the real names of the other Kingsmen and I might shoot you _before_ I cut off your head.” She had a faint accent.

“Lovely,” he muttered. “What if I refuse?”

“I cut off your head while you’re still alive,” she said dryly.

Indeed, a lovely choice.

“So?” she questioned, pressing the knife deeper into his skin until blood trickled down.

“If you kill me, you won’t get your information,” he warned her, eyes on the blade.

“Because it isn’t like there are other agents I can have a nice talk with, right?” she replied with a snort.

“They are trained,” he said, although he could barely speak. “They’ll kill you.”

“Like you?” she retorted, clearly amused. “That would make my job so much easier.”

Merlin bit his tongue.

One sudden movement and he would dead. Or paralysed from the neck down. Both were things he’d like to avoid.

Someone was picking a lock. The lock on his door.

Her head snapped up while she tightened the grip on her weapons.

“Merlin,” Roxy said over the glasses. “Merlin, hang on, we’re nearly there.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

The woman above him bit her lip.

The door sprang open.

Merlin grabbed her waist, shoving her.

She cursed, damping the fall with her hands. Then she was back on her feet, shooting.

He rolled away from her, putting a knee to the floor, before attempting to push himself up. Everything was spinning.

He stayed on the ground, looking up. There were the two agents, both of them hunched behind an umbrella for cover.

Dagger – _flying_ dagger, piercing the ground inches away from them with an ugly noise.

The woman turned around towards him, aiming her gun.

Shot.

Hissing, she dropped to her knees.

Eggsy was now leaping at her her for an attack, but she bolted from her position, another dagger in her hands. The agent dodged; she kept attacking.

Roxy knelt down next to him.

“You okay?” she whispered. “You’re bleeding.” She pointed to his throat.

He touched the injury, barely noticing the cut in his skin.

“Yes,” he answered, nodding, his gaze wandering back to the fight.

Eggsy had trouble standing his ground against the woman, struggling with the speed, brutality, and unconventionality of her style.

The other agent gave him a glance, before getting up. Cautiously, she approached the stranger from behind.

She dodged the attack, stepping to the side, before whirling around and hitting Roxy’s stomach.

Eggsy targeted her hip with a kick. His foot connected, causing her to lose balance.

She fell to the ground and … she was trembling, when she got back up, but her right leg was giving in under her.

“Fucking-”

Merlin narrowed his eyes, slowly pushing himself into a standing position.

His friends had already gotten closer, cutting off any way to escape, since the woman’s back was to the wall.

“Surrender,” Eggsy demanded, his voice firm and confident.

Merlin wasn’t so sure about it. It could be an act. It certainly would be an unusual one, especially for someone with such skills, but it was a possibility – she was so good, he couldn’t imagine her failing.

“Yeah, right,” she snapped. She tried standing straighter. Instead, she fell into a coughing fit, clutching the fabric of her shirt with one hand.

It … didn’t make sense.

The two agents exchanged a short glance before leaping into action.

The woman dodged the first hit, bringing herself in direct line of Roxy’s punch. It sent her staggering backwards.

She ended up collapsing.

Eggsy first looked at her, then at his friend, then at him.

Carefully, Merlin took a few steps towards the unconscious woman, kneeling down next to her, expecting _something_ , but there wasn’t anything. Her pulse was … weak, weaker than it was supposed to be, and her skin too cold.

He rose to his feet, turning around to the other two agents with a small sigh.

“Let’s get her to the headquarters,” he said. They nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still a little anxious about putting such a huge (+150k) work online, but, well, here I am, hoping the re-write didn't make it worse. (Once I'm done with the other chapters, I'll try updating regularly again.)  
> Also, since I've written the first draft of this in 2016, this fix is going ignore basically everything from TGC.


	2. Deals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been re-written.  
> & Russian words are still translated at the end of the chapter and they're pronounced the way they're written.

The bed felt different. Harder. Smaller. No one next to her. No headache.

She bolted upright, her eyes snapping open.

Bright. Way too bright. Everything spun. She was going to be sick.

Groaning, she laid back down, putting an arm over her eyes and focusing on breathing only. It didn’t really help, because there was still the nausea and the spinning and her thoughts didn’t make much more sense and her memories were a hazy mess.

Fuck. What had she gotten herself into?

She should be at the hotel, in her bed, not … somewhere else, not in this shape, and surely not without being able to recall how she had ended up here. Stuff like that could get her killed. Or worse. Probably worse.

At least she wasn’t restrained.

Slowly, she drew in another deep breath, blinking a few times while gradually lowering her arm. It was as bad as it had been the first time – her eyes hurt and she had to narrow them so hard a pounding settled behind her temples, but this time she managed to properly sit up and look around.

It was all a bit blurry, like always.

The room she was in seemed to belong to a hospital – white walls, little decoration. Plain. Cold. Machines.

Her muscles were trembling and she wasn’t too eager to find out why, since all the answers were going to be unpleasant.

She shook her head, running a hand through her hair.

By now, she usually remembered what she had been doing last night. The fact that she didn’t was … concerning.

For one, she knew her condition couldn’t suddenly have gone so bad she needed medical help, because she’d be screaming then. Or crying. Or both, honestly.

Drumming her fingers against the blanket, she tilted back her head, closing her eyes.

It … she felt like she had been doing something important. Like, actually important, like a hit or something, not just having a few drinks too many – which wasn’t that unlikely and it wouldn’t be the first time she suffered an alcohol poisoning.

She … had been in England, yes, and-

Fuck. _Fuck_.

How the fuck could she have forgotten about that job? It was one of those she had thought to be a joke at first, the ones you’ve only got offered once in your life, and she hadn’t been too sure whether to laugh or chuck a whole bottle of vodka, but as it turned out, a secret service kinda based on the legends of King Arthur was a real thing. Here at least.

The client had demanded she started with this one guy. Merlin.

He hadn’t been that difficult to handle, neither had been these two kids who showed up – until one of them _just had to_ kick her scar and, of fucking course, the morphine _just had to_ wear off right then too.

“ _Derr’mo_ ,” she hissed, clenching her hands into fists and trying to keep breathing deeply.

She had passed out on a job. Surrounded by the enemy. Jack was _so_ going to skin her alive, if she didn’t herself first – it was usually a death sentence itself when being a hitman, if not a sign for torture though she didn’t feel that tortured yet. Sure, there were her thoughts and too loud voices in the back of her head, but she had always been good at suppressing them and that was exactly what she was doing right now.

So, then … she wasn’t in a hospital, was she? Amazing. Absolutely fucking amazing.

She folded back the blanket, swinging her legs out of bed, stopping dead.

Someone had put her into one of those ugly things people were required to wear in clinics and she was going to find them and kill them.

Shaking her head, she stood up, the floor cold beneath her feet. More importantly – no pain, no twitching, no trembling.

Once more, she glanced around the room, this time specifically looking for something that could serve as a weapon. There was only a pillow and she guessed, in the worst case, she could suffocate someone with it if she didn’t manage choking them with her bare hands or anything.

Slowly, she set into motion, walking towards the door.

It opened.

She recognized the man who entered. Merlin. He wore another suit, dark blue, carrying a clipboard.

There was a frown on his face when their gazes met and he kept close to the door after he had closed it behind him.

She glared at him, crossing her arms.

“You shouldn’t be moving,” he told her.

“You shouldn’t be alive, but here we are,” she retorted, shifting her weight to her left leg, hoping – despite her client’s wishes – he’d spontaneously combust.

He didn’t. His frown only grew deeper and he studied her for a moment without ever breaking eye contact and it was making her uneasy.

“There is something you might want to see,” he said then.

“I don’t think you know what I want to see,” she replied with arched eyebrows. The only thing she’d like to see was her boss.

“I said _might_ ,” he replied, his expression turning dark for a brief moment, but there was no anger in his voice – he was still all calm and stern and she didn’t know what to do about that.

Merlin turned his attention to the clipboard that, apparently, wasn’t one, considering he was tapping on it like it was a phone or something.

The dark screen to her left lit up, displaying a news report.

The anchor was blonde, probably in her late thirties, not entirely unattractive.

“The explosion that occurred two days ago in London is still going unsolved,” she announced. They showed a picture in the background. Hotel. Shady. Big ball of fire coming from one of the windows, engulfing the whole east wing.

“The incident happened in the early morning,” she went on. “The fire destroyed most of the rooms on the eastern side. For now, the damage is estimated to be roughly four hundred thousand pounds.” Right. Weird country, weird currency. “The police has yet to release a statement. However, the hotel’s security footage which was recovered could provide a hint.”

Now there was a black and white video on screen. Blurry. Could be showing a woman entering, walking up to the reception, and leaving.

“If you recognize the woman or know anything about her whereabouts, please call-”

He cut off the recording right there.

She turned around towards him.

“So what?” she asked, giving him another glare just for the sake of it.

“Do you know anything about this?” he questioned, the frown stuck on his face.

She shrugged. “Why do you care anyway?”

“You attempted to kill me,” he said as if she had need just another reminded at how bad she had been at her job. “Why wouldn’t I?”

His calmness was irritating her. Honestly, couldn’t he act like any other person and get angry, try to get revenge or something like that? She knew how to deal with these people and it was easier than dealing with him, that much was for sure. Also, it coasted less time.

“Okay, fair point, but you still can’t expect me to just tell you everything I know,” she answered. “That’s not how it works.”

“The woman in the video is you,” he stated after a moment, not even commenting on what she had said. So … maybe he had just a whole lot more patience and self-control than she did. Didn’t make it better.

“That’s what you say,” she replied.

“It’s obviously you,” he replied with a small sigh. “And I would appreciate it if you stopped being so irrational about everything.”

“But I’m not rational,” she shot back, glaring.

“I noticed,” he told her and she could swear there was a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “However, it appears, the person that wanted you to kill us wants to kill you now as well.”

“Could be a coincidence,” she said. “Also, why so sure it’s the same person? Did they leave a note behind saying that or are you just assuming?”

“It is an assumption, yes,” he answered. “But the chances of it being a coincidence are quite low.”

“You have no idea how many people want me dead,” she replied, arching her eyebrows further.

He sighed once more, pinching the bridge of his nose, annoyed with her … or with her replies, she wasn’t too sure and she didn’t particularly care.

And … fuck, fuck, something about this look he had reminded her of Ylvi – it made her skin tingle and brought back memories that she had nearly forgotten and it hurt … kinda. Like everything hurt when she thought of her, right between her fourth and fifth rib, a dagger right through them.

It didn’t seem like she was going to have the option of drinking too much, killing too much, working too much, and risking too much to forget this time.

“I simply want you to cooperate,” he said then, the words coming out a little strained like he wanted to say something else instead.

“It’s not that simple,” she retorted, tapping her fingers against her upper arm. “You might have figured that out.” Her lips pulled into a humorless smile, barely holding up the corners of her mouth.

“I can’t let you leave the room if you don’t,” he told her.

“Because you’re so good at stopping me, yes?” she asked, snorting.

He only pressed his lips tighter together, apparently not liking being remembered on that – which she wasn’t blaming him for, sure, she didn’t like being remembered on how the last time had turned out either, but … it was something she was keeping in mind to use as an argument.

“But, let’s say, I’m curious,” she went on, running a hand through her hair. “Since, why would you want to work with me anyway?”

His face stiffened and she wasn’t too sure he was actually going to answer, because it looked like something he didn’t want to admit, because … well, she couldn’t think of many scenarios in which a secret service would be so desperate to get her, a hitman, to work with them, and all of them included them being very badly in need of intel.

“You might possess information that could help us,” he said, making it sound like a possibility, not a fact.

“Might?” she asked, arching her eyebrows. “Don’t you mean probably?” Her lips parted to another smile that was a whole lot more predatory and self-satisfied this time.

“You could also be pretending to know something to gain an advantage,” he said.

“Honestly, that’s the most realistic assessment anyone’s given about me,” she muttered with a shrug. “Yeah, so, you’re not entirely wrong about that, but I’d love to remind you that I don’t need an advantage.”

“So you don’t know anything?” he questioned and it was … not what she had expected.

“Depends,” she said. “I know, for example, more than thirty ways to kill someone with my bare hands and I’m very much interested in showing you.”

Anger wasn’t going to help her, she knew – she needed … she needed a phone and her weapons and then she needed to get the fuck out of here after she had talked to Jack, but unless she could someone convince this guy, she couldn’t. Which sucked. Because she wasn’t good at convincing.

“You’ve probably thought of a deal, right?”

His frown grew even deeper and she was fully expecting another shitty comment, but there weren’t any and it was surprising how many of his replies he could swallow without seeming to run out of patience.

“It would be a temporary cooperation where we exchange information,” he stated. “I would personally make sure you wouldn’t harm anyone.”

“Sure you don’t want anyone more competent on that job?” she asked with arched eyebrows.

“You seem to drastically overestimate your skills,” he commented.

“You know there were, like, ten times I could just have killed you if I wanted to, right?” she asked in return. “So, sure you’re not underestimating me? But, then again, even if you didn’t, you’d have to suggest this stupid idea, eh? Because you need information. And it pretty much looks like you don’t have any. And you hope I have some.”

He didn’t reply right away, this time taking a little longer. “You are smarter than you seem to be.”

“It’s amazing how you make that sound like an insult.”

“It was a statement,” he corrected her. “It is your business what you make out of it.”

She snorted. There was no use getting upset about it because men usually underestimated her. It was the same as always. Kinda. Mostly.

“Guess I have no choice,” she muttered then, though she’d rather bite off her tongue.

His frown deepened. “You’re agreeing?” he asked like he couldn’t believe it. Neither could she, to be honest, but she had to do something.

“Do you want me to write up a contract?” she snapped. It was a bad idea, considering cooperation was something she shouldn’t do without orders from her boss, but the good thing was, there was no moral code binding her to keep her word if Jack said anything different, so …

He nodded, still not looking like he was believing her, before taking a few steps closer and offering her his hand … which was a stupid thing to do if he was still suspecting her of trying to kill him – then again, he might be still underestimating her.

Digging her teeth into her tongue, she looked at his extended hand, wanting to take a step back to get some distance between them. “Is a handshake really necessary?” she asked then, glancing up at him.

“No,” he replied, irritated, as he withdrew his hand.

“My name is Merlin,” he went on and she was so glad he wasn’t asking. “But you already knew that.”

“Yeah,” she muttered. “I’m Darja.”

“Are you Russian?”

It … wasn’t the reaction she had been expecting and there was no anger in his voice or disgust and she wasn’t too sure he was even capable of feelings like that.

“ _Da_ ,” she replied, resisting the urge to glare at him because … well, she didn’t like being Russian. Because Russia was a shitty excuse of a country. “Does it make any difference?”

“No,” he said. “I was just wondering.”

She wasn’t exactly buying that, but … whatever. Not her problem. She was used to lies, after all, she was wearing them like a second skin.

“I’ve got a question,” she said. “Am I getting my clothes back?” He better wasn’t going to give a bullshit answer because if he did, she was going to reconsider and instead just try choking him.

“Of course,” he answered with a brief nod like it was the most natural thing in the world. “It’ll take a moment.” He turned around and left.

It was … it wasn’t that bad and there was this small hint of relief she was trying to ignore, because it shouldn’t be there, yet she didn’t get around feeling it.

Sighing, she shook her head, walking back to the bed and sitting down on the edge, before popping the joints in her back.

This was a giant piece of shit, this situation, and there was nothing she could really do about it and she hated it.

But, well, it was her fault to begin with, because she had failed and-

She shouldn’t be thinking about that now, not in detail at least, because there were a lot of other times where she would and then she’d see her life crumble right in her hands, because she had failed, because she _was_ a failure and-

Yeah. Just like that.

She swallowed. The bitter taste stayed.

Waiting had never sat too well with her – neither had silence, so both things together were just … bad. Really, really bad.

And it seemed to take forever until the door opened again.

Merlin entered, carrying her nicely folded clothes and she couldn’t remember the last time she had put so much effort into it.

She took them, nodding, her mouth too dry to talk and thank him.

“Are you going to give me back my weapons as well?” she asked. “And, along the way, all my other personal belongings?”

“Later, perhaps,” he replied and she snorted, before putting her clothes down next to her.

When she looked up again, he was still there.

“Morphine does have several dangerous side effects,” he said with this blank face.

“That’s my problem,” she answered, leaning back and supporting her weight with a hand. “Not yours.”

“It would be my problem if you overdosed,” he replied.

“Not happening,” she said. “I know what I’m doing.” Even if she didn’t, she’d gladly take the risk, because overdosing was better than the things that would happen without morphine, better than the screaming and crying and the cut up arms and scratched open leg and the fears and memories.

His gaze briefly drifted towards her right leg.

She was suddenly too aware of it – it was as ugly as a burn scar could get, padded, red, uneven, running from her foot all the way up to her waist, nearly covering the width of her leg, the stitching still visible. It could have been worse, the surgeons had said, but she’d pay a lot of money to have all of it removed anyway.

“I’ll be leaving then,” he told her. “Hurry up.”

She kept glaring at his back until the door closed behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Derr'mo – translates to "shit"  
> Da – translates to "yes"


	3. Concerns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been re-written & any Russian phrases will be translated at the end of the chapter.

****Thinking one was going to die the next second was the stuff her nightmares were made out of lately, but what came after that was much worse.

The fear and the panic, the realization that it had been pure luck that had saved them, the memory of how powerless she had been, how powerless they all had been, how helpless – it was keeping her awake, manifesting in vague forms and shapes whenever she tried to sleep, putting her in a hyper-vigilant state with the expectation of danger at every turn. It wore her down.

Roxy closed her eyes and took off her glasses, before quietly setting them on the table.

“You all right?” Eggsy asked.

She looked up, hesitating for a moment, nodding slowly.

His eyebrows were sceptically drawn together and his gaze lingered on her for a moment longer. Then a brief smile crossed his features.

She returned it.

He focused his attention on the file in front of him again.

Biting her tongue, she lowered her gaze as well, attempting to concentrate, but by the time she had gotten to the second letter, she had forgotten the first one.

Her thoughts swirled too much.

And there was worry too, so much of it, it was making her sick.

Merlin had left them to paperwork, insisting he would be fine talking alone to the woman who had nearly killed him.

There were so many ways this could go wrong and Roxy didn’t understand what he was even trying to accomplish – perhaps he didn’t want to put them in danger again, perhaps he was truly so sure that nothing could happen, perhaps they wouldn’t be as much of a help as they wanted to be, considering the shape they were in, but … still. She would certainly be calmer being there instead of sitting here.

Or at least he could have let them wait at the other side of the door – if he needed help, she … couldn’t tell if they made it in time from here.

Slowly, she shook her head.

Merlin would notify them when he needed them, wouldn’t he? But what if he couldn’t-

The idea made a chill run down her spine.

Her mind was still racing, always coming up with more and more scenarios, putting things into words she would rather not have spelled out.

Gradually, she took a deep breath, trying to focus on that alone, trying to focus on keeping the air in her lungs for a couple of seconds before releasing it, trying to focus on the beating of her heart.

It wasn’t helping.

She looked at the file in front of her again, this time determined to at least get past the title, but the stinging in her chest was too much and the lump in her throat threatened to suffocate her.

The door opened.

She turned around, her heart in her throat.

Merlin. Unharmed.

Relief flooded her.

He briefly stopped, glancing at them.

“How’d it go?” Eggsy asked, casually leaning back in his chair, a small smile tugging the corners of his mouth upwards by an inch, unstable enough to crumble any second.

“Quite well,” Merlin replied as he closed the door behind him, then stepping into the room, moving with the same, unshakable composure as always. “She didn’t try to kill me.”

That was good, wasn’t it? After all, all she had been dreading had included the absolute opposite.

Eggsy nodded, relaxing, and she wished she could do the same.

Merlin had sat down in his chair at the end of the table by now, putting down the clipboard.

She … wanted to ask, for selfish reasons, because she thought, if she knew more, it would calm her somehow, yet, she didn’t want to bother Merlin with anything.

“Could you … find out anything about her?” She bit the inside of her cheek, immediately regretting to have spoken at all.

He only nodded though and she let go of another breath held too long, not sure why she was so cautious about it, but the tension was making her more … nervous than she wanted to admit.

“She said her name was Darja” he answered, appearing rather tired at recalling the conversation. “And that she was a hitman.” He hesitated for a moment before continuing, which he usually never did.

“She agreed to cooperate,” he went on.

“But that’s a good thing, ain’t it?” Eggsy asked, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion as he sat up.

“Theoretically,” Merlin replied with a reluctant nod. “However, I don’t think she truly intends on cooperating.”

It … was something she hadn’t wanted to hear.

She couldn’t tell what exactly it was that made her skin crawl, that made her want to forget about it, that made her so sick about it – it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a _hitman_ wasn’t intending on keeping their word, yet … she had hoped for a better result, for security in the matter.

The door creaked, opening only a couple of inches at first, then fully.

A woman stopped in it – on a first, superficial glance she’d pass as ordinary. Averagely tall, wearing a dark pullover and jeans, a leather jacket in her hands.

She was everything but ordinary though. Roxy was sure, if she had ever seen her before, she would remember within a heartbeat.

Everything about her was screaming danger to her and she didn’t think it was only because of the memories she had, no – there was something in her eyes, something in the way she was standing, relaxed but ready to strike, as capable of killing a person with nothing but her hands than she was with weapons.

Her facial features stuck out too – angular jawline, straight nose, prominent cheekbones, narrow eyes –, framed by soft waves reaching past her collar bones, naturally dark although the lower third had been dyed in an ashen colour that made her tanned skin look pale on contrast.

“You all might want to avoid windows for a while,” the hitman said. Her voice was low, even, with an abraded accent to it. “Or anything else than the relative safety of an atomic shelter.”

She- she was being sarcastic, wasn’t she? She had to be.

“For which reason?” Merlin questioned, folding his hands on the table.

“Figured you’d prefer to live,” she answered. “And since my boss is the kind of person who shoots first, asks questions later, and then kills you, your chances of surviving are about non-existent, especially since the situation’s not that clear.” Her lips parted to a life- and humourless smile that had something predatory, something that made her think this woman would sink a dagger in their backs at the first opportunity she got.

Roxy exchanged a short glance with Eggsy.

She knew what Merlin had meant. Darja seemed so ready to kill them, nearly looking forward to it – there was no way she would keep her word.

“He tried killing you,” Merlin said then, his frown deepening.

The hitman rolled her eyes at him. “Boss and client aren’t the same thing, yes?” she asked with another glare, shifting her weight to one leg and crossing her arms.

There was more to it than she was telling, clearly, and Roxy couldn’t help feeling like it was some kind of sore point, something … that this woman didn’t want to be brought up.

“The thing is,” Darja went on, leaning with a shoulder against the door frame. “If I fail to kill you within a certain time frame, my boss will.” Her voice had gotten darker and there was something calculating in her gaze now.

It made the hairs on her neck stand up.

“Hypothetically speaking,” Merlin said slowly, simply considering the possibility that she meant part of it after all. “Is there any way of preventing that-”

“Well-”

“That doesn’t end with you murdering us?”

“I’d love to say no,” she answered with a sigh, a whole lot more honest than Roxy would have expected – it didn’t match what she had said earlier, not the exaggeration and the lies … if they were lies. They had to be, hadn’t they?

Darja ran a hand through her hair and … she looked older, by a couple of years, but as soon as she blinked, it was gone, leaving her wondering whether she had just imagined it.

“If you gave me my phone back,” she said then, with another glare but they were losing their intensity. “I could call him. And ask him not to do that.”

“And that would work?” Merlin questioned.

“Why wouldn’t it?” she asked in return. “He’s reasonable. Kinda.”

It wasn’t reassuring to hear, not exactly at least, and … she didn’t know. None of this really made sense to her. There was no way of telling what was true and what wasn’t.

The frown on Merlin’s face kept growing deeper. Darja arched her eyebrows further, an unspoken question hanging between them.

After another moment, he reached inside his suit, withdrawing a phone before sliding it over the long table.

“Don’t try anything,” he warned the woman.

“You wouldn’t notice if I did,” she replied, before taking a few steps forward to pick up the device, proceeding to turn it on.

Roxy felt the need to disagree, to argue, but even if she had managed to get out a word, she wouldn’t have found any arguments. There could be a code word, a special way of phrasing things, a single sentence – all of these things wouldn’t seem out of the ordinary, after all, they were dealing with a professional here.

Darja typed a number, then holding the phone to her ear.

“I know which time it is,” she said quietly after a moment of silence, closing her eyes and exhaling slowly. “I know. I need to-” She cut herself off.

“Alright,” she went on. “I hear you, alright, but, like, can you wait with all that bloodshed and torturing until I explained?”

She paused, tilting her head a little and there was so much tension in her jaw she thought it might snap. “ _Ya ne znayu, ya poprobuyu-_ ”

It took her a second to notice the switch in languages and another one to realize that she didn’t know a lot of Russian. Or any.

“ _Da, konechno_.” The woman put the phone into a pocket of her jeans without taking another glance at the display, turning around towards them again.

“Done,” she said, her expression colder than before.

Her … boss had probably said something she didn’t like, told her something she wasn’t too fond of.

“How did you learn about us?” Merlin questioned after a short moment.

“I’m omniscient,” she deadpanned before sighing. “The client sent a mail with all the information I needed to gave. You know how mails work, old man?” There was a twitching in her lips as if it was supposed to be a joke.

Merlin simply took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Meaning, you didn’t find out anything by yourself?”

“I don’t get paid for playing detective,” Darja replied. “So, yes.”

“Do you still have the files?”

“Theoretically,” she answered. “I would have to get my laptop. From the hotel.”

“You don’t mean the one that has been involved in an explosion,” Merlin concluded and she rolled her eyes at him in annoyance.

“Obviously,” she replied in a tone of voice like he had just personally insulted her. “So, if you-”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say,” she replied, snorting.

“I assumed you were going to ask whether I’ll let you go alone?” he questioned.

“Well, alright, that wasn’t that hard to guess,” she answered, tapping her fingers against her upper arms.

Slowly, Merlin rose to his feet.

“I don’t like where this is going,” the hitman muttered, studying him for a moment.

“Neither do I,” Merlin replied, her eyebrows wandering up further in response. “But I will come along regardless.”

Roxy’s stomach twisted.

“Please don’t,” Darja muttered.

Merlin still crossed the distance of the room, motioning the woman to follow him. She did, but not after another glare.

Roxy let out a breath she had kept for too long when the door closed behind them. She wanted to race after them and convince Merlin not to do this, to think of something else instead, but her thoughts were a mess and her legs were shaking too much to get up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya ne znayu, ya poprobuyu- - translates to "I don’t know, I’m trying-"  
> Da, konechno. - translates to "Yes, of course."


	4. Questionable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been re-written & all Russian phrases will be translated at the end.

****He had always had a thing for reading people, quickly finding a way to get behind even the most complex masks they put on. After all, no one could control every inch of their body and so something ended up slipping – the shifting of their eyes, the small change in their tone, the subtle tension in their body, the brief flicker of the emotions they were trying to contain.

Darja was no different – she buried every hint of what she truly thought and felt beneath arrogance, mock, and occasional anger, and she was doing a good job at that, surely, however, with a little more time, he was certain he would figure her out as well. He had to.

For now, he simply had … a couple of interactions with her to start with, all of which didn’t quite fit together, no matter how he was thinking about it. She was oddly straight-forward for a hitman, strangely honest despite having every reason to lie, understandably defensive and upset. As for her threat of killing him … while she was dangerous enough to be taken seriously on that, Merlin didn’t think she would actually attempt it as lightly as she was suggesting.

Currently, though, his focus was needed elsewhere.

She hadn’t said a word since they had left the dining room. He suspected, she was glaring dagger at his back instead. It would come as no surprise, considering how offended she had looked, yet he could only speculate about the reason, which made her unpredictable. Merlin didn’t exactly like unpredictable people.

He exited the mansion.

Cold air greeted him, heavy with the smell of approaching rain. The trees had lost their leaves about two months ago, now standing bare and dark against the sky.

He went down the stairs, one hand resting on the cool stone. A car was already waiting, the key left in the ignition and the engine turned off.

Stopping next to the driver’s side, he glanced at Darja, who had arched her eyebrows.

“Is there a reason you use cars that look like cabs?” she asked, nearly sounding casual.

“Yes,” he answered after a moment, not sure where she was going with that question. “Cabs are such a regular appearance, especially nowadays, that no one pays much attention to them.”

“Well, I guess,” she replied with a shrug.

Silence settled in, briefly, tensely. Then she sighed, running a hand through her hair.

“Will the car explode or something if I open the door?”

“No,” he answered slowly. “Has something like that happened to you before?”

“No and I’d like to keep avoiding it,” she answered, making him wonder why she was thinking of it then in the first place.

With a shake of his head, dismissing the thought, he opened the door and got inside the vehicle.

She followed his example.

“You know,” she said casually when fastening her seat. “I hadn’t thought you out of all people would get in a car with me.” There was a provoking tone in her voice.

“I think you’re exaggerating,” he told her, glancing at her, finding her studying him.

“I think you’re downplaying it,” she replied with an arch of her eyebrows, tilting her head. “I told you I could kill you with my bare hands.”

“But you haven’t,” he argued with a frown. “If you truly wanted to, you could have tried about a dozen times already.”

“I could just be waiting for the perfect opportunity,” she suggested.

He … wasn’t too sure what she was trying to achieve, after all, threats wouldn’t get her anywhere – she should have noticed that much. And … he didn’t understand why she wanted him to be wary of her so badly either since there were more disadvantages in that than anything else.

“I get the impression, you want me to distrust you,” he said then, looking for a clue in her face, but there was no twitching of her lips. She barely even blinked.

“That’s the natural thing to do,” she answered, a dark look in her eyes but she wasn’t quite glaring at him. There was tension in her jaw. “It’s still up in the air whether I’ll end up killing you.”

She made it sound like she was waiting for orders, and it would make sense, considering this call with her boss had certainly been about more than just telling him to postpone whatever he would have done.

Yet, there was more to it, an implication, something hidden between the lines, something he hadn’t expected to find.

Merlin tore away his gaze with a sigh and fixed it on the dirt road instead, leaving the matter for another time. He started the engine.

She rolled her eyes and turned around to look out of the window.

The silence lasted until they reached London.

Then Darja sat up, her eyebrows drawn together in what he assumed was suspicion, glancing into the rear-view mirror.

“Pretty sure we’re being followed,” she said. “Do you see that silver car that kinda looks like a pickup truck?”

Merlin glanced at her – her expression was serious – before he returned his attention to the street, then checking for the vehicle she had managed.

He found it.

His heartbeat sped up. He didn’t know for how long it had been there.

“Do you mean the Nissan?” he questioned.

“I’m not good with car brands,” she replied.

If she was right, which wasn’t that impossible, he had made a mistake. A grave one, on top of that, after all, he was Merlin for a reason and he didn’t know how something like that could have slipped him so easily – perhaps it was because he was more used to coordinating everything from a distance, but that was a poor excuse.

He took the next turn. The pickup was still there, always keeping one or two cars between them – it wasn’t exactly subtle, though neither it wasn’t a coincidence.

“You look like you’re not believing me,” Darja said after another couple of seconds, having shifted in her seat so that she could watch him better.

“On the contrary,” he replied, making her arch her eyebrows at him in a way that made clear how little she was buying that. “However, I’m still weighing possibilities.”

“There it is,” she muttered, sounding a bit too relieved, like it would have shocked her if he hadn’t said that. “You know I have a personal interest in staying alive?”

“I imagined,” he answered simply, attempting to properly split his attention between the traffic, her, and that Nissan.

“So, since I have bulletproofed skin nor my weapons, it would really suck to run into someone who has,” she said.

“No one has bulletproofed skin,” he answered.

“You know what I mean,” she replied and rolled her eyes at him, dismissing it with a wave of her hand.

“Why do you think there is going to be a fight?” he asked. “And that guns will be involved?”

“I’ve learnt to expect the worst,” she said dryly, looking at him. “Also, I’m mostly working in America and you can actually bet money that whatever you do, two out of three people will have weapons, especially if you’re doing illegal stuff.” There was no anger, no provoking – just annoyance and impatience. Barely though.

“I see,” he replied with a nod.

She arched an eyebrow, apparently waiting for something.

“I was trying to subtly tell you that a suggestion on how to deal with this situation or an offer of at least a gun would be nice,” she said now, her voice sharper and lower than before.

“I noticed,” he told her, a frown crossing his face. “But you surely are aware that I can’t just give you a weapon like that.”

“Yeah, but you don’t act like you’re terribly afraid either,” she commented flatly.

“It’s because you’re not as frightening as you make yourself out to be,” he replied.

She glared at him.

“We’ll see about that,” she said. It was a promise and he wouldn’t be that surprised if she genuinely tried strangling him any time soon for the sake of proving him wrong.

He wasn’t afraid of it, because violence was nothing he was afraid of. He had seen enough of it to grow dull towards it. Scars and bruises would heal. And the chance that she would really kill him was rather low.

Her shoulders were so tense he thought they’d snap and she was working her jaw. Perhaps he had personally offended her again without any intention of doing so, after all, she seemed to take her reputation and how people perceived her very seriously.

“Look,” she said after a few minutes, still obviously upset. “I don’t like this situation any more than you do and I don’t like you and I don’t think you’ve got any different opinions about that. And I don’t care. All I care about is staying alive. And that’s hard enough to do normally.”

There was more to it than what she was telling him.

“I understand that,” he replied after a moment of considering. “But I am in a position where I am responsible for other people’s lives.” He shook his head. “One moment, you’re determined to get me to distrust you, the next you want me to give you a gun.”

“Yeah, well, it’s complicated,” she snapped, glaring, and there was a tremble in her fingers that she was drumming against her upper arms.

Merlin frowned, studying her for a second. It was … a lot of things but certainly not complicated, but he didn’t think it would help the situation if he started arguing about that and telling her, how he thought there was a very personal reason she wanted to have a gun.

He shouldn’t give her anything. She was dangerous, a risk, especially if she was angry, but … in all honesty, there was no pro argument. Everything was speaking against it.

Yet …

His heart was pounding harder in his chest at the thought alone and there was a lump in his throat.

Merlin couldn’t say why he was considering it – he shouldn’t.

“I’m not going to shoot you,” she said then, with an arched eyebrow, but the amusement he would have expected wasn’t there.

“Even if you promise that, I’m not sure if your word means anything,” he replied.

“True,” she said with a shrug. “But-” She sighed, running a hand through her hair and closing her eyes. “It’s just … it would make things easier.”

“Do you plan on killing someone?” he asked, his voice stern when he glanced at her.

“Not necessarily,” she answered, her eyebrow wandering up further. “Though that would be easier too, but that’s not really what I mean.”

“So what do you mean?”

“The fickle safety of not feeling totally helpless in a possibly dangerous situation?” she suggested, the choice of words making it sound general, like it wasn’t applying to her – but it was, clearly, and her honesty was catching him off guard.

She didn’t have to tell him, she didn’t have to tell him any of the things she was telling him and he didn’t understand why she was doing it – she could lie just as easily and he probably would never know.

However, despite that, he shouldn’t give in – the safety of his agents was more important than her comfort and yet …

Slowly, he took a deep breath, simply focusing on the traffic for a moment, but the idea stayed, weirdly so.

“Open the glove compartment,” he told her then, feeling like he was going to regret that decision within the next second.

“The what?” she asked, sitting up. “I heard what you said, but what does it _mean_?” She was speaking a bit too fast now, the endings slurring. “What’s it in Russian?” She bit her lip like she would have rather not asked.

He … should have thought of that.

Merlin considered for a moment, trying to remember – it had been a while since he had last used Russian, and he wasn’t too sure he even knew that word. At first, the German equivalent came to mind, then the French one, after that the Spanish one.

“I think it’s _bardachok_ ,” he said, glancing at her.

Her eyebrows were still drawn together, conveying her suspicion just fine, as she studied him for another moment, before she opened the compartment.

“That’s … unexpected,” she muttered, not exactly talking to him, and perhaps that was why her tone was smoother, calmer – if he wasn’t imagining it, that was.

She reached inside and slowly took her weapons out – her gun which she put in the back of her pants, two sheathed daggers that apparently were coated in poison and she hid them in the sleeves of her pullover, another dagger and a knife that both went into her jacket.

They approached a red traffic light and he slowed down the car, bringing it to a halt, before he glanced into the rear-view mirror again. The Nissan was still there.

“Do you like Asian food?” she asked then, tilting her head.

“Does it matter?” he questioned in return, not quite following the sudden change of topic.

“No,” she said. “But there’s an Asian diner a few – okay, twenty – minutes from the hotel. And there’s an alley that’s perfect for luring someone in and getting them to talk. Or shoot them.”

“You’re not shooting anyone,” he said, glancing at her.

“I’ll try,” she said casually. “So, what do you think?”

“It’s not the best plan I’ve heard,” he said, pausing before continuing but she cut him off.

“That’s because it’s not a plan,” she said. “I don’t plan.”

“That’s not reassuring,” he answered with a frown. “I usually do.”

“Yeah, I figured that,” she replied with a small snort. “Do you’ve got a better idea that’s not running around the city until the people following us are tired of it and try something or following them in return?”

“What’s so bad about both of that?” he questioned.

“It’s waiting for something to happen and that’s wasted time,” she said but he got the impression that she didn’t like waiting in general, because things were out of her control then and she seemed to like having at least the illusion of being in control.

Merlin considered for a moment – a very brief moment, since their destination was close enough now to be seen and it would be difficult to come up with something until he parked the car, especially since he had so little information.

On top of that, the approach Darja had suggested sounded like something that would work in American action films, not in reality, but, he supposed, it was better than nothing, if he didn’t want to argue with her about other approaches, which he didn’t.

“All right,” he said with a small sigh, attempting not to think too much about it.

“Are you sick or something?” she asked, a hint of sarcasm in her voice now. “Because I didn’t think you’d actually agree with me about that. Or anything, really.”

“Is it really that hard to believe?” he questioned, scanning the side of the road for parking spaces.

“Do you want me to lie to make you feel better?” she asked after a moment, her eyebrows arched high, and he sighed, shaking his head.

She didn’t reply, as he parked the car and went on to turn off the engine, the silence suddenly unusual.

It was a rather calm area, without much traffic – it all had something serene, in a way. The red brick was familiar, the old architecture of mainly five-storey buildings comforting, and even the trees had something peaceful.

“Well, let’s go,” she muttered, slipping on her jacket, before opening the door and getting out, closing it behind her again.

He waited for a couple of seconds before he got out as well, locking the car.

The Nissan was nowhere to be seen.

Merlin followed her, crossing the street as well, before casting the hotel she had entered a short glance.

During a warmer season, it could look nice – there were two small trees in black pots in the front of the entrance, barren branches extending towards grey skies, and several window boxes now only containing earth.

He stepped inside.

The tiles on the floor were shining black and he spotted a lot of dark wood, which made the room seem … small, too small, despite the use of white to work against it.

Darja was already at the other end of the room, casually leaning on the reception next to several flights of stairs winding up.

Merlin stopped at a tactful distance.

The woman behind the desk slowly seized the typing, looking up. She had dark hair, put up in a bun, and was wearing formal clothes.

“Hello,” she said with a smile, attention fully focused on Darja. It seemed like they knew each other. “How may I help you?”

“I want to check out,” Darja replied, her accent heavier and her voice softer, but it didn’t appear forced – meaning, she had impressive acting skills.

“I can arrange that,” the woman answered. “Your name was … Oksana Morozova?” She struggled with the pronunciation, trying but not exactly managing to get it out just right.

“Right,” Darja confirmed with a patient smile. “I was staying in room three-two-five.”

The clerk nodded, typing something into the computer, before a frown appeared on her face. “Are you sure?”

“I am, thanks,” Darja answered, running a hand through her hair. It had something elegant now, not something agitated, like she was suddenly someone who couldn’t afford to be caught off guard – like a model or an actress.

“All right,” she muttered, swallowing, typing again.

“Also, I was wondering,” the hitman went on, waiting until the clerk’s attention was fully on her again. “Could you do me a little favor?”

“I could try,” she offered, the frown smoothing a little, although there was still some concern.

“Could you keep this a secret?” Darja asked, biting her lip, sounding like she was genuinely embarrassed to ask at all. “I know, it’s an unusual request and all, but it’s kinda important to me? I wanted to enjoy my stay in London, but I have, unfortunately, had a run-in with a few not so understanding guys and now they’re bugging me and really won’t leave me alone, so I guess one of them will show up here sooner or later and … well.”

The other woman nodded nearly immediately. “Of course,” she said, her expression soft and understanding.

“Sorry,” she muttered, scratching the back of her head, uneasy in her skin. “But … thanks. Really.”

The clerk simply nodded again, brushing off the topic with a wink of her hand. It was only now that she seemed to notice him, slowly turning around to look at him, hesitating for a moment.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Darja said before Merlin had even thought of something. “He’s with me.” She turned around to look at him. The smile on her lips wasn’t meant for him – small, light-hearted, perhaps even flirting, growing brighter when she glanced at the woman again.

“You know,” she went on in a confiding tone of voice, quiet enough that he barely heard. “He’s a bodyguard. After all, I’m a model, not a material artist.” She gave a silent laugh, like the idea was the most absurd ever and if Merlin hadn’t known better, he would just have believed her.

He politely nodded, when the other woman looked at him with a frown, but a little bit of suspicion remained.

Darja waved goodbye, before climbing up the stairs right next to her that creaked beneath her steps.

He followed her, although staying a little behind her.

She stopped once they reached the third floor, never slowing down in between, entering the hallway to her right and leading the way to the room she must have occupied. Then she dug through her pockets for a card she opened the door with.

She entered the room.

It was flooded with light coming through tall windows, contrary to the rest of what he had seen of the hotel until now.

There was a large bed, a few chairs, and a table, all in light and bright colours – white and beige, some blue and dark yellow, and a few brown hues.

Yet, it didn’t have anything personal except from an empty bottle on the table that probably had contained alcohol, along with a laptop, and two bags on the floor.

Darja was already busy storing the device into one of them.

Then she walked towards the windows, quickly glancing outside.

“We’re definitely being followed,” she announced, acting like she always had around him.

Frowning, he crossed the room when she didn’t elaborate, looking outside as well.

There was a silver car parked at the side of the road that could be a Nissan. A man walked from it towards the hotel.

“Possibly,” he replied, watching her out of the corners of his eyes.

“Well, if not, I’m at least getting something to eat out of this,” she answered with a roll of her eyes.

“I suppose,” he said, not suddenly much more fond of the plan than he had been a couple of minutes ago, but he had decided to follow along with it when he hadn’t argued with it sooner.

“I suppose you want to go alone?” he asked.

“That’s the whole point of it,” she retorted with a small snort but the edge was missing from her voice.

Slowly, Merlin nodded, considering he had left himself with no other choice than that.

She nodded in return, shouldering her bags.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bardachok – translates to "glove compartment"


	5. Assault

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been re-written (a little).

****The doubts hit her the second she stepped out of the room.

Nothing new there, she always doubted herself. This time though … well, it wasn’t just about that.

Relying on other people was always a bit _risky_ when you couldn’t trust anyone, and Merlin was no exception to that – if she did trust someone, she could end up very dead very fast. Which would, honestly, be one of the better outcomes.

No use considering that now. She wasn’t going to go back in and admit how much of a dumb idea it actually was.

Maybe that was a big flaw of hers, and maybe she should do something about it before it got her killed, but … there were other, bigger flaws and she had have had that conversation before and it had been awful and it would-

Darja took a deep breath, keeping it in her lungs until she couldn’t anymore, only then releasing it.

Work was work. She had to focus. One mistake was one too many.

She shouldered her laptop bag and tightened her grip around the other one, setting into motion.

The weight of her weapons pressing into her skin – the cold of her gun, the leather of her knives – had something reassuring, something grounding, like alcohol had something sobering for a couple of moments until you blacked out.

The hallway still seemed small, too small, and she still hated the dark wood that reminded her of things she didn’t want to be reminded of.

Breathing was getting harder and she smelt smoke, genuine smoke, not cigarettes, but she simply shook her head, forcing the memory back into the dark corner of her mind it had crawled out of.

She climbed down the stairs, paying attention to their creaking beneath her weight, the muffled echo of her steps, the rushing of her blood in her veins.

No other noises.

Good. She guessed. It probably wasn’t, because silence like that never was a good thing, but she would find out soon enough then anyway, wouldn’t she?

She wanted to hurry but she couldn’t, not if she didn’t want to draw attention, yet time seemed to drag on forever and the stairs didn’t seem to end and it was making her a whole lot more uneasy than she wanted it to.

There were only two flights left when she heard voices.

She stopped.

“Miss,” a man said. Rough voice. “Think about it again. Are you sure you haven’t seen the woman I’m looking for? It’s important.”

She didn’t remember his voice. So she probably didn’t know him.

Which was, on the one side, positive. On the other, there was a stranger looking for her which was … a giant pile of shit. _If_ that guy was looking for her, but, honestly, what were the chances that he wasn’t?

“I’m sorry, sir,” the other person replied – Elaine. “But I really haven’t seen her.”

Silence.

“I’ve told you before,” she said now, sighing. “I do not know this woman. And, if that’s your only concern, sir, I have to ask you to leave.”

“Are you certain?” the man asked, probably not for the first time, considering how pressing he sounded.

“I am,” Elaine replied. “Now, please-”

“Fine,” he retorted, snorting. Heavy steps. More silence.

Darja didn’t like it. This guy seemed suspicious, and … who was he? And who had send him? Jack hadn’t, she knew that much, but that didn’t exactly narrow the possibilities.

And he didn’t exactly seem like a _professional_ criminal either, let alone a hitman, because those avoided to be remembered.

She waited a few more moments, until she could be absolutely sure the man had left, before she took the last few stairs down.

Elaine’s gaze caught hers when she entered the lobby.

Darja managed a smile, probably a shy one, running her hand through her hair.

“Thanks,” she said, using a heavier accent, stepping a little closer.

“No problem,” Elaine told her with a smile of her own. “I’m happy to help. I hope, he hasn’t bothered you too much?”

“No,” she replied, shaking her head, then pushing a few strings of her hair behind her ear. “I appreciate your concern though.”

The clerk nodded, her gaze trailing towards the stairs, like she was expecting someone else. Her smile faltered. “Where’s your bodyguard?”

Right. Shit. Well-

“Well,” Darja answered with an awkward shrug, scratching the back of her head. “You know, I don’t want to stir up any false rumors – the press is horrible with these things – so … he went on ahead. Don’t worry, I’ll meet up with him soon.” She gave an assuring smile. “It’s going to be fine.”

Nothing was going to be though, not really, not until Jack said she could go back home and they would take care of this together, without any weird secret services.

Hopefully, he’d do that soon.

“I see,” Elaine said quietly, the worry still visible on her face though. “Stay safe.”

“I will,” Darja answered with a tired smile. “Anyway, do you have a piece of paper and something to write with for me?”

Nodding, the other woman reached for something out of her sight, beneath the table.

Gun. She should draw her own.

She ignored her instincts.

Elaine handed her a small sheet of paper and a pen, smiling at her.

Darja returned the gesture, slowly taking the pen, before she wrote down her phone number.

“In case you need something,” she said, looking up. A favor for a favor, she guessed, in a way – it was the nice thing to do. Despite being a hitman. And despite having to be forgettable. And it was stupid, but she only realized now and … she didn’t feel like she would actually get a call anyway.

“Thanks,” the woman replied, surprised, her gaze lingering on the numbers on the paper instead of her.

“Here’s the keycard,” Darja went on, placing it on the desk. “See you.”

“See you,” she repeated.

She nodded, then turning around and crossing the room, before exiting the building.

A rush of cold greeted her and she closed her jacket, shoving her hands into her pockets.

The city didn’t look any different. Darja didn’t know if it was supposed to be calming or upsetting her, really.

Movement. To her left. Someone in the crowd, trying not to be seen, doing a horrible job at it.

 _Definitely_ not a professional.

When she started walking, gaze kept on the pavement, the person followed her.

At least something was working out.

  


* * *

 

 

Nearly half an hour later, she left the fast food restaurant with a box of noodles.

The warmth was nice, considering it was still fucking cold and she should have probably brought gloves or a scarf or something, but, then again, those weren’t exactly the most convenient if you had to fight.

The smell made her stomach ache from hunger and cramp a little – god, she was about to screw the plan and just eat. Too bad the guy was still following her, since she wasn’t going to risk anything, even if he seemed to be really bad at this. She had gotten a glimpse of his face within the first _minute_.

It was as close as a personal insult in her business could get.

There’d be enough time to be upset about that later though.

The alley was getting close, so she slouched her shoulders. Never had been her favorite part about the job, pretending to be weaker than she was.

Shaking her head, she suppressed a shudder and all those memories threatening to take over her mind.

She turned right, entering, acting as if she was totally unaware of the heavy steps following her and the panic building up in the back of her head.

To her left, bins bristling with trash. To her right, a building, high and tall, and making this alley feel too narrow. In her way, holes in the asphalt, filled with dirty water.

She made it halfway through, her back already hurting from the position, before this guy decided to act.

“Hey,” he said with a voice so rough it made her throat hurt from just listening to it. “Listen up.”

She turned around with the most confused expression she could put on.

“Are you … talking to me?” she asked, drawing her eyebrows together as she studied him.

He looked ordinary. Brown hair, pullover, pants, trainers.

“Yeah,” he snarled in annoyance. “You.”

She tightened her grip on the strap of her laptop bag, feeling the other one dig deeper into her shoulder. The dagger beneath her sleeve pressed against her skin.

She swallowed visibly.

He took a step forward,

She took one back.

He grinned in satisfaction at her ‘fear’.

Asshole.

Darja wanted to reach for her gun and just shoot him, like she would have done back in America, but this wasn’t America.

Her feelings didn’t listen to reason though – anger seethed through her veins, boiling up in her stomach, rising in her throat, and she wasn’t going to just let him go.

“Piss off, hitman,” he said, loud and confident. “If you don’t, you’ll regret it.” He clenched his fists and grinned, apparently pleased with this fake sense of being superior.

Pathetic. So really, really pathetic. She barely needed anything from her first year of training to take him out.

“Uhm, I don’t now-” Her voice was quiet, trembling even a little, but only because she was about to laugh.

“You heard me,” he said with a low growl. “Piss off or I’ll make you regret it.”

Yeah, _right_.

“Sorry,” she said, drawing her eyebrows further together as she gave a nervous laugh. “You _really_ must be mistaking me. I mean, do I look like a hitman to you?”

“Don’t fuck around,” he replied, nearly yelling.

“Please don’t shout at me,” she said, flinching and raising her arms. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. If you want money, I can give you money, but, please, leave me alone.”

She glanced at him.

He had stopped mid-action, a fist raised, irritated, hesitating.

Slowly, she lowered her arms again, shifting her weight.

The man narrowed his eyes, taking a few steps closer until he was about two or three feet away from her.

That would do.

“Wait a moment,” he said, studying her more closely.

She placed the noodles on the trash bin, out of his sight.

“But-”

She leaped forward, kneeing him in the stomach. Then she withdrew one of her sheathed knives, running it along his neck, just deep enough to inject the poison.

He crashed to the ground.

Darja placed a foot on his back, stopping him from getting up.

“So, now,” she muttered, drawing in a deep breath, ignoring the straining of the straps, sheathing her dagger.

He groaned.

With a snort, she turned him around with the tip of her foot before pressing it down on his chest. “Who are you working for?”

Glaring.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“Come on,” she said.

“Bitch.”

“Asshole,” she retorted. Then she pulled out her gun, aiming it at his head. “Let’s try again. Who’s the idiot that hired an incompetent loser like you?”

“I’m not telling you,” he spat.

“Then I’m shooting you,” she told him with a shrug of her shoulders, clicking the safety off and putting a finger around the trigger.

It was working miracles.

“Wait!” His voice cracked. His eyes had gone wide.

“I am,” she reminded him after a brief moment of silence.

“I … I don’t know,” he stuttered.

“You wanna try again?” she asked and arched her eyebrows. “Because, if you’ve got nothing to tell me, you’re not of use to me.”

“I really don’t know!” he said, swallowing so hard he forgot to breathe. “I just got this weird email, but they offered to pay good-”

“The name,” she demanded, pushing down harder with her foot. “What’s their name?”

“There was none,” he told her, becoming quiet all of a sudden.

She moved her gun closer, despite being relatively sure he wasn’t lying – but torturing him a bit more was fun and she wasn’t above it either, so …

He trembled, whining, squinting his eyes shut, waiting to be shot.

And for a moment she considered just doing it because he deserved it, although he was going to die within the next twenty-four hours anyway, but the satisfaction of shooting someone was something entirely different.

Unfortunately, this still wasn’t America and there was Merlin and someone was bound to notice and she fucking hated it – she hated everything at the moment, really, so maybe that was that, or maybe she just hated-

She sighed, clicking the safety of her gun back on and taking a step back. “Fuck off.”

His eyes snapped open. He scrambled to his feet.

“If you tell anyone about this,” she said quietly, glaring. “I will find you and _you_ won’t like that.”

He barely nodded before turning around and stumbling as he left.

Hopefully, he wouldn’t cause any more trouble than he already had.

She took a deep breath and shook her head, putting the gun into the back of her jeans again, picking up the noodles.

Then she left the alley as well.

Merlin was there waiting, with the car, and … she wasn’t too sure how to feel about it.

For a second, she bit her lip, hesitating, thinking about turning around and leaving, before getting in on the passenger side.

The thud of the door had something eerily final.

“I didn’t shoot him,” she said with an arch of her eyebrows when she looked at him, noticing the frown on his face.

“You killed him anyway,” he replied, seeming a bit tense. “And you used your gun in public.”

“I wasn’t really _using_ it,” she argued. “But nothing happened, so what’s your problem?”

“Something could have happened,” he told her, quietly, seriously, like … she didn’t know.

“You really think I’m doing this for the first time, don’t you?” she retorted with a snort. “So, if somebody saw me, if there had been police, I would have come up with something.”

“I’d prefer it if you stopped doing that,” he said then after a moment, his gaze focused on her, and for the first time, it was making her uneasy, because he was actually looking at her and she feared he could see everything she didn’t want him to.

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t try ordering me around,” she answered, her voice low and conveying anger though she didn’t know where it was coming from.

“It’s not an order,” he said, blinking, his frown deepening as he studied her.

“It sounds like one,” she snapped, trying to ignore the other possibility, the fact, that this might was … truly a cooperation between equals, that things weren’t as bad as she wanted them to be, that it was something she hadn’t learned to deal with.

It was all only temporary anyway. Really.

Merlin seemed to think or consider or weight or _whatever_ for a moment, before shaking his head, turning around and starting the car.

She withdrew the chopsticks from the pockets of her jacket.


	6. The Kingsman files

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been re-written. Also, translation at the end, as usual.  
> cw & tw: (mild) language & angst

****She had finished her noodles before they even left London.

On the bright side, her stomach wasn’t hurting anymore. On the not so bright side, there was nothing to busy herself with.

There was the muffled noise of the engine and traffic outside, yes, but it was too quiet, nothing against the unreasonable, too loud voices in her head, the doubts, the fears, the ones painting a way too vivid picture of the worst case scenarios, the memories.

She dug through her jacket and pants, looking for some chewing gum although she was pretty sure she had run out of it the day prior to the hit.

Shit.

She needed _something_ , anything, really, that would serve as a distraction and … she still had her cigarettes, but, well, Merlin would mind … not that she particularly cared about that, it was just that she wasn’t really trying to make him _hate_ her. If she could was another question entirely, since he seemed like the type of person to get angry very, very slowly.

With another sigh, she ran a hand through her hair, before pulling out her phone, attempting to ignore this stupid, tiny spark of hope.

There wasn’t going to be a missed call all of a sudden.

Darja was right about that. The screen lit up. No new messages, no new emails, no missed calls.

The disappointment was still bitter in her throat.

For a second, her fingers hovered over the screen and she considered writing Elias. Or Nik. Or Ylvi. Or, fuck, she’d even write Jack, even though he never read texts or replied to them and disturbing him was always a bad idea, of course, but just sitting here for … a while wasn’t that much better, honestly.

In the end, she locked her phone and leaned back into the seat, closing her eyes.

It was getting ridiculous – _she_ was getting ridiculous. That was the whole problem.

She couldn’t go back in time and undo her mistake. The sooner she accepted that, the better. It had happened, though it shouldn’t have, yeah, sure, and it fucking sucked, but there was no use in getting so worked up about it. No need for all the things swirling around in her head like some tornado.

Slowly, she blinked, opening her eyes again.

Fields greeted her instead of buildings, fields and fields and even more fields, now brown, plain earth that looked pale compared to the sky. And it didn’t seem to end, simply going on for longer and longer and longer.

Darja had never liked it; she was more the kind of person who preferred cities with people and skyscrapers and screens and so many things to distract you. For her, there was something depressing about these wide stretches of nature and nothing, something that made her always feel so unimportant and small and she hated that.

After what seemed like forever, there was a building in the distance.

Several minutes later, the car finally came to a halt.

She got out the very same second, taking in a deep breath of the cold air stinging in her lungs and sending a shiver from her head to her toes. It came back out as a small, white cloud, quickly rising up.

There were steps. She turned around.

Merlin was already on his way towards the mansion, motioning her to follow him with this hard expression still stuck on his face.

Briefly, she hesitated. Orders were orders, no matter how much she disliked them, sure, but her sanity was another and … it wasn’t going to end well. There was still this panic in the back of her head, rooted, and she didn’t know if ignoring would work – it was already threatening to spill over.

She gritted her teeth, biting her tongue until all she tasted was blood, before following him, having to speed up her steps not to get lost.

The hallways still all looked the same to her. She didn’t want to stick around long enough to see that change.

He slowed down in front of a big pair of doors that seemed at least the faintest bit familiar, which wasn’t that surprising because, apparently, there was only one of these in the whole building.

Merlin opened them.

Yeah, she also remembered the room behind it – it was the one with the layout that didn’t make sense to her, the one with the long table in the middle of it and … nothing else.

The two kids were still – or again – there, sitting in the same places as last time.

Darja stopped at the door, leaning against the frame with a shoulder and crossing her arms.

Every instinct was telling her to go, to turn around and run, and she didn’t know why – not exactly at least, though, sure, there was this threat of a panic attack, but … there was also this trembling in the tips of her fingers, this sense of immediate danger, this rush of adrenaline.

Was she just missing something, maybe because she didn’t want to think about it, or was she overreacting, was-

“Is something the matter?” Merlin asked, having gone ahead and sat down, his hands flat on the table, and he was looking at her and … he didn’t look angry, not like he had been repeating that question.

“I’m contemplating my chances,” she said flatly, lying. “And how far I would make it if I ran.”

The truth was, she wouldn’t make it far, because this was in the middle of fucking nowhere and because of orders and because she and cars didn’t really get along that well.

“It seems you assess the situation realistically then,” he replied. “Since you’re not running.”

“Oh, yes,” she answered with an assuring nod and small hum, barely managing to keep her lips from twitching. “I’m already thinking about which way of killing you would be the best.” Only then she gave in, smiling arrogantly, self-satisfied.

Merlin pressed his lips together, apparently not liking that answer too much.

The two kids didn’t seem to either.

“I see,” he answered, his tone cool. “Could you show us the files then?”

She arched her eyebrows. Usually, people were at least _a bit_ offended when she said stuff like that, but it seemed like he wasn’t most people … which she should have probably guessed, because she had noticed it before, but … she didn’t know. Whatever.

With a shrug, she pushed herself from the door frame, crossing the room.

Then she stopped next to his chair, still at some distance, but not enough.

Darja went on to open the zipper of her laptop bag, before taking out the device and placing it on the edge of the table.

Booting took forever – and although she was pretty sure it was simply her mind playing tricks on her, it didn’t really help, because there was nothing she could do about it.

Finally, she got to enter her password, then dragging her mouse over the whole screen to double click on the files she had downloaded from the client’s mail.

“There it is,” she said, barely managing not to grit her teeth, when the document popped up.

“May I?” Merlin asked, his hand hovering a few inches above her laptop.

_What_.

That was … unexpected. More than unexpected. Because … it was polite, in a way, she guessed, and she couldn’t remember the last time she had met someone in her line of work who had been polite.

“Don’t damage anything,” she replied, her voice rougher than before.

“Duly noted,” he answered.

Wait, that-

It sounded like he was being sarcastic, but she hadn’t thought he even knew what that was, let alone how to use it, and … it was throwing her off, sure, and she didn’t like being thrown off and yet it wasn’t that bad – in face of everything else, that was.

The two kids leaned in to get a better look, while she took a few steps back, crossing her arms again.

Honestly, she’d rather not do any of this, because … she didn’t like other people touching her things and there wasn’t really much of a reason for it other than her generally not trusting people. And, of course, she was a hitman, but this was about her laptop, not her weapons, so … it was different. Still.

Her phone buzzed. Repeatedly.

Sighing, she pulled it out of her pocket, taking a quick glance at the display.

Her stomach dropped.

The number wasn’t saved to her contacts but she knew it anyway.

Jack.

And there was this stupid hope and this bitter taste of disappointment and as much as she wanted to take the call, as little she wanted to at the same time because it meant facing reality and she’d rather not do that now when there were other people around, possibly watching, seeing-

She swiped her finger right before her mailbox kicked in, turning around, walking towards the window and holding the phone to her ear.

“ _Dobriy den’_ ,” she said, pushing the air out of her lungs like she was exhaling cigarette smoke. Unfortunately, there was nothing calming about the gesture alone.

“I’m having about as much of a good day as you do,” her boss replied in Russian, sounding like he always did – dry and flat.

“What a surprise,” she muttered beneath her breath, swallowing.

“Really,” Jack answered and … she had no idea if he was being sarcastic or just really, really tired of it all. “You do owe me an explanation, I recall? I’d like to hear it now.”

“It’s not the best moment,” she told him, digging her teeth into her bottom lip.

“Probably,” he answered.

“Alright,” she said then, running a hand through her hair, since there was no use arguing and she had to tell him at one point anyone, but … that didn’t make it any better, only worse, since her heart was nervously fluttering now and her breaths were coming unregular and unsteady.

“So,” she went on. “It started with this email I got. Someone offering a job. The pay seemed good.”

“It usually does.”

“Yeah,” she said, already feeling a tremble of her voice. “The job itself seemed easy enough too – just killing and torturing a few people. Looked like it was about taking out a whole, secret organization or at least the important part of it, but, whatever, right? So I accepted, got half the money in advance.”

She paused. “The client gave me a shit ton of information – a bit too much, if I’m honest, and I was suspicious about it, but I decided not too care to much. I went to London, hacked the security system of the first guy’s apartment and waited. He didn’t turn out to be difficult to handle either; neither were these two brats that showed up.”

“But?”

“ _But_ ,” she repeated, swallowing, a lump suddenly sitting tightly in her throat and threatening to choke her. “Something went wrong. I don’t know what or why or how. I just kinda know one of these brats hit my scar and the morphine wore off – it shouldn’t have – and … well, you can imagine the rest.”

“Unfortunately,” he said, but he didn’t sound angry. He never did though. “What happened then?”

“I woke up in a hospital,” she answered. “Only that it wasn’t one but part of the headquarters belonging to the organization I was supposed to take out. And then this guy I was trying to kill first comes in and shows me this news reports about the fake apartment I booked being blown up. So I had to agree to cooperate to get out and now … I’m kinda showing them the files I got to prove I’m not making this shit up.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, hearing her blood rush in her ears, and it felt more like she was fighting than having a conversation.

“It would be great if you wouldn’t skin me alive,” she added.

“I wasn’t going to,” he told her before falling silent, briefly, not for longer than a second. “The situation seems complex. Too complex to make rash decisions.”

“What do you mean, rash?” she asked, surprised she even managed to.

“To say whether I can get you out of there immediately or not,” he replied.

“I could, you know, just do my thing and kill some people,” she replied with a shrug of her shoulders, still sounding casual although her fingers were shaking.

“I don’t doubt you,” he answered. “I doubt that it’s the wise thing to do.”

“Jack,” she said, her heart pounding so hard against her ribs she thought they were going to bruise, while she had to clench her free hand into a fist.

“I don’t like it either,” he said, but it wasn’t making any of this any better. “But considering the chances that these two incidents – the client wanting to kill them and, apparently, you – are related, there would be an advantage in you staying just long enough to find the link.”

“And if there isn’t any link?” she asked, the words burning on her tongue like fire. “If they only wants me out of the way because I fucked up?”

“Where would they know?” her boss questioned.

“There was this guy,” she said, forcing herself to speak slow and calm though the words threatened to rush off her tongue in a blur. “When I got my laptop. Amateur. He was apparently only hired to tell me to fuck off. Though he did look like he was ready to fight me.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Jack replied, his tone sharper than before. Her heart stopped there for a moment, something sinking her stomach. “If that man was hired by your client, they would have no need to blow up your apartment. And they wouldn’t hire an amateur … unless he’d want you to get away.”

“That makes even less sense,” she muttered, but she felt like screaming, like begging, like _pleading_ , because she didn’t know if she could bear staying.

“That’s my point,” he replied. “I’m not going to make a decision with possibly grave consequences until I can be a hundred percent sure it’s manageable.”

“Yeah, but-” She cut herself off, swallowing, looking for words. There was only panic though and the urge to run.

“It’s not just about some new scars,” he said – but it didn’t matter what he said, rather what he _didn’t_ , because … she knew, she really knew, and it was knocking the air out of her lungs, it wasn’t letting her breathe, it wasn’t letting her _think_.

She wasn’t used to people caring. She wasn’t used to _him_ caring.

“I know,” she said then, barely whispering, her voice about to tremble, eventually failing her when she wanted to continue.

“I’d prefer not to,” he said after a moment of silence that was unusual enough.

And, fuck, yes, Jack was probably right about all of that, because he was always thinking ahead, thinking logically, thinking rationally, and yet her feelings were conflicted, so conflicted.

“ _Alright_ ,” she muttered, her heartbeat stuttering, feeling like it was one of the biggest mistakes of her life.

“Be careful,” he said only. “I’ll be getting the files you received from your mail, yes?”

“ _Da_ ,” she answered before he ended the call.

Shit. It was – it was all just really shitty, honestly, and she didn’t know … she just didn’t feel like she knew anything anymore. Like, at all.

She wanted … she still just wanted to go home, really, but it wasn’t going to happen, not any time soon and-

She shook her head, running a hand through her hair, simply focusing on just breathing for a couple of seconds, before putting her phone back in the pocket of her jacket.

Then Darja turned around, walking towards her laptop again.

They had gotten further through the files than she had assumed, though she couldn’t really tell from where she was standing. The headline was blurry.

“That’s …” The girl looked up, her gaze briefly lasting on her before she looked away, swallowing. “That’s … pretty much everything about Kingsman.”

The boy had gritted his teeth, clenching his hands into fists under the table. Probably because of the pictures of his mother and sister and friends.

“I’m afraid so,” Merlin said. He was even tenser than before, the frown so deep on his forehead it looked carved.

Darja simply shrugged.

He cleared his throat, focusing the two kids under his gaze. “We should inform the other agents.”

Then he withdrew a pair of glasses from inside his suit, holding them towards her with compressed lips.

“I don’t have eye problems,” she told him, crossing her arms and shifting her weight to her left leg, the lie coming as easily off her tongue as any other.

“Just put them on,” he said with a heavy sigh that made her arch her eyebrows.

He sounded … tired, in a way, and he looked shaken, somehow, and it was bothering her, because … she wasn’t used to emotions being displayed this open. Well, it wasn’t really _open_ – he was hiding it, but she could still see it.

Okay, maybe she was also starting to imagine things.

She bit her tongue, keeping herself from replying, and took the glasses, before cautiously unfolding them, putting them on.

The weight on the bridge of her nose was unfamiliar and it made her dizzy, causing a headache to settle behind her temples.

She looked up then, narrowing her-

Wait. _Wait_.

There were people now, filling up all the empty seats. They didn’t really look like actual people though, since they were blue-ish green and spacing out and lagging like … holograms.

They _were_ holograms.

What the fuck. There hadn’t been any fucking word about that on any of these fucking pages. She was sure she’d remember if something like that had come up even as a side note.

She swallowed.

They were all men, all dressed in suits, all wearing glasses, all somewhere between late thirties and mid-fifties and all fucking looking at her, two of them pretty hostile.

Amazing, really, fucking amazing.

“There has been an incident,” Merlin began. The attention shifted from her. “A hitman has been hired to kill us.”

She wouldn’t exactly call that an incident, rather a problem or … something else.

“Fortunately,” Merlin went on, smoothing the unease in the room. “We prevented lasting injuries or fatalities. However, concerning is that someone did their research on us.” He turned around her laptop to show these other agents the screen.

She bit her tongue.

“It is most likely that this matter won’t be resolved easily,” he continued. “Due to that, I ask you to be even more careful and to report immediately if you come across anything suspicious. Stay safe.”

The men nodded, before taking off their glasses and vanishing, leaving no sign behind of ever being there, but her heartbeat was still racing like crazy.

Cautiously, she untangled the pair on top of her nose from her hair, before folding it together and holding it with two fingers like she’d hold something disgusting.

The pounding inside her head didn’t ease.

Silence.

Merlin’s gaze lingered on something at the end of the other room, while the two kids looked at him like he had all the answers to their questions.

“So …” The boy trailed off nearly immediately, briefly glancing at her.

Darja couldn’t help feeling she was the reason for his hesitation.

He breathed in, slowly, deeply, focusing on Merlin again. “What do we do now?”

“We go home,” he answered, seeming as stern as he always did, but there was something about his way of saying it that made it sound like it wasn’t as easy as that and …

It was getting hard to find the right words.

“The last few days have been exhausting,” he added now as if it the two kids would end up understanding better, but she guessed he was trying to say something else instead, something he couldn’t say directly because of her … for whichever reason.

The other two agents exchanged a short glance.

Darja arched her eyebrows, resisting the urge to run a hand through her hair since she didn’t want to draw any attention – there had been enough already.

There was hesitation about it, so much hesitation, like … she had a feeling there was an unspoken conversation happening, just through exchanged glances and … she didn’t necessarily like it, mainly, because she couldn’t follow it.

The two didn’t seem like they approved of what Merlin was suggesting there, no, and they looked like they were going to protest, argue, but … they didn’t.

She had no idea if that was a general thing or if it was only now because she was around and no one wanted to start fighting in front of her.

Slowly, she tapped her fingers against her upper arm as the silence dragged on, long and tense and heavy, making it harder to breathe and keep all these thoughts, memories, at bay.

After another, exchanged glance, the two kids got up, carefully, like they wanted to do everything but that, and walked out of the room.

The thud of the door had something final, something, that pressed the air out of her lungs.

“Let me guess,” she said then with a sigh, sounding hoarse, looking at him. “You won’t just let me stay at another hotel?”

“No,” he answered, confirming the fear that had been rising hot and cold in her throat, choking her.

She glared at him, in lack of words and in lack of trust in her voice.

There was more silence, more heavy and pressing, more screaming of her thoughts, and he was watching her and she didn’t want him to, because she didn’t know how long she could keep all of that up without letting something slip past her control.

“What do you have in mind then?” she asked, her voice now lower but steadier, although there was a tremble of her vocal chords.

He didn’t answer right away … which was strange.

“You … do have something, don’t you?” she asked then, drawing her eyebrows together, since … he just seemed like the type of guy who always had an idea, no matter what it was about.

“Well,” he said, causing her eyebrows to wander up further, clearing his throat.

“Honestly,” she muttered, closing her eyes for a moment and drawing in a deep breath to brace herself. “Just lock me up in some room for the night.”

He frowned, studying her for a moment and it took every bit of self-control she had left not to bite her lip and appear insecure.

“That would make you more of a prisoner than someone who is willing to cooperate,” he replied.

She wasn’t sure what it was about his answer that was surprising but … something just was and it shouldn’t be, because it would be normal, logical, but she had been in enough shitty situations and there had been enough shitty people so … it’ wasn’t what she had been bracing herself for and it send her stumbling for an answer.

“That’s your only concern?”

His frown deepened and he studied her again, too long, too intensely.

“It’s one of them,” he answered. “Another one is that you would figure out the code for the lock.”

It wasn’t the thing he had wanted to say.

“I have my orders,” she told him though she didn’t want to because she hated the orders and she hated how she felt like losing control because nothing about this conversation was going like she had imagined it too, because he wasn’t the kind of person she had expected him to be, and there was something that made her ears ring and her nerves tingle painfully.

“I figured you had,” he answered, his frown deepening once more.

She opened her mouth and shut it again, not sure whether to be impressed or terrified.

Well, fuck. He was smart. Shit. If he had figured that out, it wouldn’t be long before-

_Fuck_.

“And, I suppose, those orders include not killing us?” he asked then and she was so sure she was going to throw up.

“Unless it’s self-defense,” she answered, the words nearly getting stuck halfway.

He nodded, slowly.

And- shit, fuck, it was … sure, she had figured he was smart, but not that smart, not that good at putting things together and … it sucked, because … well, for one, there was this thing with her boss and how much he’d hate if anyone figured out these connections, relations, whatever, and second, there was a whole bunch of personal things he should not know. Definitely not.

It was bad. It was really, really bad.

There was silence, again, and it was getting too much, and it was another problem adding to all of that and it was another risk and she was already neck-deep in both of these things.

He was looking at her again, studying her, like that would end up telling him what to do, whether to trust her … but he was already somehow trusting her, in a way – if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have given her her weapons.

And he knew that … somehow.

He seemed older now – the wrinkles on his face were deeper and the shadows darker.

After another moment, he pushed himself to his feet, one hand lingering on the table like he needed to steady himself.

She watched him with arched eyebrows, careful, not sure what to expect, biting her tongue hard enough to draw blood, but the pain wasn’t grounding her like it usually did; it just added to this mixture of everything, making it all too much.

He nodded towards the door, motioning her to follow as he strolled ahead.

She wasn’t too sure about this, honestly, but she currently wasn’t sure about anything, so …

Darja placed her glasses on the table, before quickly shutting her laptop and stuffing it into its bag – it nearly slipped through her fingers.

She slung the bag over her shoulder, picking up the other one, catching up with him at the door.

Her heart was racing in her chest and her breaths were coming a bit too short and it was stupid because there was no actual, genuine reason for that, and it was all alright, really, seriously, god, what was she even worrying about?

She just had to breathe, in and out, and stop thinking – she just needed to make it through just a little longer, just a few more minutes. She could do that. Really.

He lead her through the building again, through hallways that looked all the same, until they stood in the room in which she had woken up this morning.

“It’s the best I can do,” he said, nearly sounding like he was apologizing but … she didn’t get it, she didn’t get any of it, and … it was good, yeah, and she wouldn’t have complained – okay, not right now at least – and …

Her brain was failing to understand, to put all of these pieces rightfully together, to make sense out of anything.

“Yeah,” she muttered, looking around – she still didn’t like the very idea she had suggested, but it was okay, better than most other things she could have come up with and she’d rather not find out what he could have come up with … though, now, there were doubts about that, doubts about her judgment and … it wasn’t helping.

Her phone buzzed. Repeatedly. Again.

It wasn’t a good sign, not for anything, because Jack never changed his mind so quickly, so something must have happened or come up or … it just wasn’t something good.

She pulled it out of her pocket.

It was really Jack.

She took the call, trying to ignore the lump in her throat and the shaking of her hands.

“What is it?” she asked, too aware of Merlin’s presence and that he had just turned around to look at her and – she _knew_ that it all was ridiculous, god, yes, she knew, she knew just too well, because, actually, there was no reason to panic, and yet here she was, panicking.

“Can you get the person in charge on the phone?” He sounded strained, just a tiny, tiny bit, but it was enough to make her have an absolutely horrible feeling about it.

“Sure,” she replied, the tremble in her throat returning. She swallowed it down. “Why?”

“Later,” he answered.

“Alright,” she muttered quietly.

Biting her tongue again, she held her phone towards the agent.

He gave it a brief glance, then her. She just shrugged.

With another frown on his face, he took the device, cautiously, not even brushing her fingers.

Darja crossed her arms, waiting, trying not to think, trying not to … she didn’t know. She was just trying to keep it all together for just a little longer though she had never been good at that.

Merlin’s expression grew more and more confused the longer the conversation went on and all his answers were something along the lines of ‘yes’, ‘perhaps’ and ‘under some circumstances’.

He glanced at the display. It was dark.

“He just hangs up when he has nothing else to say,” she pointed out, shifting her weight to her left leg.

He nodded. “Who was he?” he asked, handing the phone back to her.

“My boss,” she answered, slipping the device back into the pocket of her jacket. “Now, you mind leaving?”

There was another look at her, too long and too intense, like he could see thatthere was something wrong with her and whatwas wrong with her.

He didn’t ask though, simply nodded and left, contrary to her expectations, pulling the door shut behind him.

Her breath was trembling too hard in her chest and she nearly dropped the bags when she put them down.

It … she was trying to tell herself that it all was still fine, that everything would be fine, but it wasn’t, nothing was, and there was this fear now, crushing her, freezing her in place, this realization hitting her hard enough to make her choke on her own breaths – there was the reality of it she couldn’t escape any longer.

She had failed a job. She had actually _failed_ it.

Normally, she’d be dead, so, so dead. Or worse. Probably worse. Definitely worse.

And … she knew what her boss usually did to people who failed. And it didn’t feel right that she got off so easily because she was part of some inner circle or whatever – it didn’t feel right that she didn’t really have to pay for her mistakes.

And it was bullshit, she knew, in a way at least, because she couldn’t have done something about that scar and the morphine, it was out of her control, but in the end, she had still failed and that was all that mattered, wasn’t it?

Her muscles were cramping now, shaking so violently she was surprised she could still stand and her breaths were coming flat, too flat, so flat that her sight was starting to spin.

It wasn’t the first of these episodes and it wouldn’t be the last and it was okay – she knew, rationally, but emotionally, she was desperate and scared and she didn’t know if she could find enough strength to do the only thing that helped, after all-

Fuck. The last time she had been with Ylvi and- _shit_.

She gritted her teeth until her jaws hurt and clenched her fists until her shoulders were aching from the tension, trying not to think, just trying not to think about her, about the regret, about how it all hurt and how she missed her and how everything had been okay for a while and how it was eating her alive.

The taste of blood was heavy on her tongue, making her want to vomit until the acid burned through her throat.

Right. Right.

She just had to get the box in front of her laptop bag.

It was all just that bad because she had been caught up in an unintended withdrawal. Just side effects of that. They just made it all worse.

Just that.

Slowly, she released a breath she had held for too long, before squatting down and withdrawing the wooden box from the pocket, then cracking it open.

Neither the syringes nor the ampules were damaged.

Good.

She’d manage the rest.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dobriy den’ - translates to “good day”  
> Da - translates to “yes”


	7. Information

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been re-written.

****The knock startled her.

Her head shot up. She pointed the gun at the door.

Silence.

Had … there really been a noise? Or was she imagining it? No, she couldn’t – neither memories nor nightmares started with knocks, they started … with worse things.

So, no actual need for that kind of reaction; the lack of sleep simply made her jumpy.

Slowly, she let out a breath she had held for too long, lowering her gun but still holding on to it with a knuckle-white grip, just in case. It was a fragile kind of comfort, she was aware, but … there wasn’t much giving her comfort at all.

“Yes?” Darja asked after a couple more moments, having made sure her voice wouldn’t give in.

“Good morning,” Merlin replied from the other side, the words muffled, and yet it had something strangely reassuring. Maybe it was because of the door. Yeah. Probably. “There is something I want to talk about with you.”

“Yeah, alright,” she muttered, not sure if he could hear her.

“Would you come outside?” he questioned, sounding like he always did, calm and stern and all of that.

Maybe it was … she didn’t know, maybe it was a thing here to talk about stuff face to face or maybe there was something important or maybe he just wanted to see how she reacted or maybe he was being polite or … she didn’t know. Maybe there was no reason behind it, aside from being a normal, decent human being and she was overthinking it because she was a hitman and most hitmen weren’t decent or even human, only beings.

“Isn’t the door locked?” she asked, a bitter taste on her tongue.

“No,” he answered after a brief moment and she imagined he frowned. “It never was.”

That-

Her next breath was unsteady, trembling in her chest, threatening to rush out again, and she was struggling for a reply, opening and shutting her mouth a couple of times, gasping for words, glad he couldn’t see any of it.

She had been so sure the door would be locked that she hadn’t even tried, because … she didn’t like locked rooms. Nope. Definitely not. And, considering how bad the panic had already been – she hadn’t wanted to make it worse.

But, honestly, it wasn’t even that, it was that an unlocked door had something to do with trust and trust was deadly and as nice as it was – in a strange way, because she had never been the person to be easily trusted –, it was …

It was stupid. It was really, really stupid and she was stupid and it was making it all harder, because there was a chance she’d end up having to kill them, him. Granted, it wasn’t as big of a chance as she was making it out to be, but … still.

She swallowed, burying those thoughts. They didn’t exactly stay buried.

“A minute,” she said, knowing it would be more than a minute. She had to say _something_ though.

God.

With a sigh, she briefly closed her eyes, focusing on keeping her breathing as even as possible.

Then she put her gun on the bed, letting go of it with shaking fingers, before slowly pushing herself to her feet. Surprisingly, her legs didn’t give in under her.

She went over to where she had put down her bags, and opened the bigger one, looking through it until she found a pair of jeans, a pullover, underwear, and socks.

Darja changed into the new clothes, running her fingers a couple of times through her hair. After that, she stuffed her gun into the back of her pants, slipping her two sheathed knives beneath her sleeve, and putting her phone into a pocket of her pants.

Gradually, she crossed the room. She rather wouldn’t, since she didn’t feel ready for any kind of interaction, and even the weight of her weapons against her skin wasn’t calming her now, but she took a deep breath anyway, bracing herself.

The handle was cold to the touch when she pressed it down and stepped outside.

Merlin was leaning against the opposite wall, one hand in the pocket of his pants, wearing another dark suit.

“Has something happened?” she asked, quietly pulling the door shut behind her and crossing her arms as she leaned against it.

“No,” he answered with one of those small frowns that never seemed to leave as he studied her, looking paler in the white light. “Did you expect something to?”

She shrugged. “Why do you want to talk then?”

He didn’t reply right away, their gazes locked for a moment – and it was strange, though not that _strange_ , and she didn’t feel uneasy either, yet …

“It’s about your client,” he answered. “I want to find out who they are.”

“I don’t know anything about them,” she replied with an arch of her eyebrows.

His frown deepened.

“I find it hard to believe that you work for someone you don’t know,” he said.

“I get paid for killing people,” she reminded him. “Not for violating my client’s privacy.” She sounded rougher than she wanted to and … she had no idea why she had the urge to do something about it.

“It’s better not to know,” she went on, calmer. “When you’re a hitman, the people who hire you also know how to hire another hitman to have you killed. And they will do that if they think you’ve let something about them slip. So, if you don’t know anything about them, they can’t take out their paranoia on you.”

“It’s a form of self-defense,” he concluded, nodding at her like he was approving of it.

“Well, you could say that,” she muttered, rather thinking of it as worker safety – it was Jack’s policy; she hadn’t come up with it.

Silence settled in between them, stretching. Darja pretended to be suddenly very interested in the walls, ceiling, and floor because … she didn’t really know. She didn’t want to find out.

After what felt like forever, she looked at him again, drawing up her eyebrows.

He returned her gaze with another frown and she couldn’t help wondering what he’d look like without one of them.

“Did that destroy all of your plans?” she asked but there was no edge to it, no, it was just … a normal question. Without provoking or anything. And maybe she was imagining it but she was sure her voice was sounding softer too, too soft.

“No,” he answered, taking in a breath. “You said, they sent you a mail?”

“Yeah,” she replied with a nod. “But, see, the internet allows people to stay hidden and anonymous if they try hard enough.”

“I know,” he told her, still even and leveled, but there was tension in his jaw that hadn’t been there before.

“Most people your age don’t even know how to turn on a cellphone,” she retorted with a snort.

Merlin took a moment to react, seemingly collecting himself and swallowing whatever reply had originally been on the tip of his tongue.

“I am the head of Kingman’s tech-department,” he told her then.

“You’re shitting me,” she said, nearly choking on the words. “You’ve gotta be shitting me.”

He had to be, he just had to, after all-

Shit. Shit shit shit _shit_ , he wasn’t, no, he clearly wasn’t and … fuck.

There hadn’t been a single fucking word about that either, not on any of these fucking pages, she was sure of that.

And- _fuck_ , he had have had access to her laptop when she hadn’t been looking and she hadn’t thought too much about it, not until now, because she hadn’t known.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she hissed out loud, trying not to clench her fists and grit her teeth although it would be the easiest thing to do – there was a tremble going from the back of her mind to her toes, setting off panic and fear.

“You didn’t know?” he questioned as if it wasn’t obvious enough but he seemed … surprised, in a way, but … she didn’t know. She wasn’t looking long enough to find out.

“No,” she said, nearly snapping at him, glaring at him.

It wasn’t his fault – not exactly at least and maybe it wasn’t _all_ hers either, but there had been signs before, now thinking back, and she should have seen it and she should have been more careful and she should have stopped and considered and she definitely shouldn’t have believed everything she was told.

Yet, it was mostly her client’s fault … or was it?

She didn’t know, she couldn’t know – it didn’t matter because she was neck-deep in trouble anyway since Merlin would end up digging up these things.

“Seems like the client didn’t think it was worth mentioning,” she added, breathing out. Her voice was low and shaking with something he hopefully mistook for anger … but he was too smart to do that, wasn’t he?

“I suppose,” he said quietly, his gaze lingering on her and she couldn’t tell whether he had already noticed. “They simply wanted you to kill me, after all.”

“Well, actually,” she replied, swallowing because it was getting difficult to speak. “They wanted you kept alive after I got the information so that you could see all the others die.”

He blinked. Once, twice, the color draining from his face, and he stared, not capable of speaking, the idea apparently horrific to him.

Merlin cleared his throat in an attempt to get back his usual composure, but it was falling apart at the edges, something slipping through – he needed a little too long to focus his gaze and it was a little too empty and going through her and there was a small tremble in the tips of his fingers when he pushed up his glasses.

“I see,” he said, the words coming out too hoarse and too slow. “But of that was your job, why did you threaten to kill me?” He had been lowering his hand that was now stopping where she had cut him, his fingers hovering over his throat.

“Death threats usually work miracles,” she said with a shrug, barely managing to keep her voice from failing her.

He slowly tilted his head to an agreeing nod, seeming busy enough with himself not to pay any attention to her. Relying on that too much would be another mistake though.

“Anyway,” she said. “What do you plan on doing now?”

In all honesty, she couldn’t care less, but she needed something to focus on before she went insane – or whatever; going insane would mean she had been sane before and she was pretty sure that wasn’t the case.

He studied her again. “Do clients misinform you often?”

“No,” she answered. “Most don’t dare to.”

His frown deepened and he was certainly attempting to put all of these pieces together, to find some way to make a whole picture out of it, but she didn’t think – she _hoped_ – this was something he’d manage … if he did, she had to kill him.

“Well, then,” he said, surprisingly not pressing the topic. “Have you tried tracking the mail you received?”

She shook her head, afraid her voice would fail her. “I know it can be done and all, but, first, I didn’t have time for that and, second, if you contact a hitman you make sure no one can find you, so why bother?” It wasn’t exactly a lie but it came close, considering the main reason was, she wasn’t good enough to do that without getting herself into even more trouble.

“I could try,” he offered.

She arched her eyebrows at him. “I would have to give you access to my email account,” she said. “And I’m not doing that.”

“It might give us a lead,” he argued.

“Maybe,” she replied. “Maybe it will also give you more information about me and that’s a risk I’m not going to take.”

He already had enough, enough to destroy her without wanting to, because … because she didn’t want to remember things he’d bring up – she had tried forgetting them ever since they had happened.

“You’ve already made a copy of my hard drive,” she added with a glare that wasn’t as sharp as usually and she hated it.

“Did you expect me not to?” he questioned, cool and distanced.

“It’s not about that,” she snapped.

It was just that not even her boss could erase everything about her, how she could never vanish and pretend the first half of her life never happened.

Her leg was tingling, burning up, and she bit her tongue, ignoring the taste of blood, trying to push it all down, to make it all go away, to not let it come back.

Merlin looked like he was going to ask, but … he didn’t, again – maybe he thought she wasn’t going to answer either way and, honestly, she’d prefer that over anything else.

“We still need information,” he stated though it seemed to take him a lot to say that instead of anything else and it didn’t make sense – she had thought he was going to argue with her until she agreed or something, not give in, and … it honestly didn’t make sense, not rationally, and he was all the rational guy, wasn’t he?

“I’m not saying anything different,” she muttered.

“But you make it very hard to work something out,” he remarked and there was the anger she had been expecting, but it wasn’t that much, it was just … a trace. Barely.

“The last time something like this happened, it all was a little easier,” she retorted.

“Why so?” he asked and she glared at him.

“For one,” she said. “I didn’t have to worry about people trying to dig up things they shouldn’t.” There was nothing she could do about it now but wait and maybe burn the files before he read them … which wouldn’t happen, probably. “Second, I had help. From my boss. And it involved a lot of illegal things – torture, kidnapping, murder. Which you wouldn’t do.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” he said with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose.

He looked tired now and … fuck, she didn’t know. She didn’t know what to do or if there was anything to do at all, because like this, they were stuck and sitting around doing nothing, waiting for something to happen, sucked, it really, really sucked and yet she cared more about herself than anything else.

“Dunno,” she said then, not even sure what she was referring to. “Since you’re probably not for bribing people-” This wasn’t Russia. It wasn’t going to work anyway. “I guess asking around would be an option; I do have some contacts, some people who owe me something.” Or people who owed Jack something, but that wasn’t that important now.

“Coincidentally,” he said, looking everything but satisfied. “There are also some people who owe me a favour.”

She nodded, humming in response.


	8. Working With Hitmen

****He met up with Darja at a café after they had gone their ways to call in favours. The look on her face was hard, distant, speaking for itself, and there was a strange feeling in his stomach, something that left a bad taste on his tongue.

Rational speaking, he had no reason to be disappointed at all. From the moment she had suggested it, he had known that it would be wasted time, an action taking just for the sake of it, in hope of calming someone – either her or him, he couldn’t even tell.

Receiving information was always a difficult part. This however …

He took a sip from the coffee, welcoming the warmth taking the weariness off his shoulders.

Merlin glanced at the woman sitting across from him. She didn’t appear upset, rather like she was burying her emotions again, holding them behind another mask. Yet, he noticed the tension in her jaw. The utter calmness she usually showed was missing as well – she drummed her fingers against the table, restlessly watching the people around them as if they had an answer to her questions.

Perhaps, it was simply a way of avoiding to talk to him.

A moment passed and he returned his attention to the tablet in his hands, continuing to browse through reports on the explosion, although they all said the same thing, only paraphrased over and over. He had given up trying to find something new.

Any other news read like nothing had ever happened, except for a number of interviews and discussions about terrorism. It shouldn’t surprise him as much as it did after last year’s events. The world always went on somehow.

Movement. He looked up.

She had withdrawn her phone from the pocket of her pants, glancing at it, then placing it on the table with the display facing down.

“God,” she muttered, running a hand through her hair and closing her eyes.

Merlin studied her for a second, considering whether to reply, when she focused on him.

She looked … tired. Exhausted.

“Do you do this often?” she asked. “Run around and come up with nothing?”

“No,” he replied, slowly. It seemed as if she either didn’t like silence or couldn’t stand it for longer periods of time. He didn’t blame her; it was simply an odd trait to have for a hitman. “Do you?”

She arched her brows at him, asking him if he was kidding her.

“No,” she answered anyway, an edge to her voice he hadn’t heard before.

He didn’t think he had offended he. If he had, she would make it clear.

She looked away, picking up the cup of tea that had been sitting in front of her before taking a careful sip. She lost the tension in her shoulders – forcing herself to, forcing herself to get rid of the anger.

He didn’t understand; he had assumed, anger was some kind of armour to her. However, as long as she was following her orders, it would certainly not help the cause.

“You usually have a lead?” she guessed, fixing him under her gaze again.

“Usually, yes,” he confirmed, setting down the tablet. “Normally, we choose to interfere, not react to being confronted ourselves.”

“So you’re the kind of people who try saving the world,” she concluded, her eyebrows wandering up a few inches.

“We did, in fact, save the world,” he replied, lowering his voice.

“Oh, great,” she muttered, cutting him off before he could continue. “You want a badge for that?” She sighed and put down the cup. Her teeth were digging into her lip now – a habit, apparently.

“You seem … nervous,” he told her then when she didn’t stop, after a moment of having given it some thoughts.

“Yeah, well, I’m not,” she answered, looking at him, holding completely still for a second. “I … just lack a couple hours of sleep.”

He didn’t think it was about the sleep itself but the things that had kept her awake, yet, he knew better than to ask, so he simply gave a curt nod, returning his attention to the article he had been reading.

She picked up her phone, spending some time with it. After a while, she put it back down to take another sip.

“You’ve got an idea what to do now?” she asked, her voice rougher now.

Merlin looked up. There was something in her eyes now, something he could neither quite name nor place, something he hadn’t seen earlier – she was restless, she didn’t want to stay, she wanted to get this over with. These facts added up to something.

“You won’t like it,” he told her with a small frown.

“It includes waiting, right?” she asked without missing a heartbeat. “Of course it does.” There was another sigh, heavy, resigned.

“To a degree,” he replied with a tilt of his head, noticing the scepticism in her eyes as she raised one brow at him. “The next step would be to wait for the police report.”

“I hope you don’t mean the official one,” she replied. This time, there was no edge. He … didn’t mind.

“No,” he answered, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards for a second.

“At least,” she muttered, picking up her cup again before she returned her attention to their surroundings, the other patrons of the café, everything but him.

Merlin refreshed the front page of _The Guardian_ , barely skimming the headlines since he didn’t expect to see anything he hadn’t already.

But he did.

 _Second explosion in London_.

He blinked. Slowly, once, twice. He hadn’t misread it.

There … was a strange feeling settling in his stomach, weighing it down.

He clicked on the title, waiting for the site to load before he scanned the article.

Another hotel. The one he had been at yesterday. Same details, as far as he could tell.

There was a video at the end. It looked like … an official press conference. He pressed on ‘play’, the sound transmitted via his glasses.

The man talking was a certain Joshua Chromwell, a detective for the London city police – the expression on his face was stern and set. He explained, they were investigating the situation and stated, this wasn’t a terrorist attack.

“You look like the world just ended,” Darja remarked, pulling him from his thoughts.

Wordlessly, he turned the tablet towards her, setting it on the table.

“Yeah, he’d be hotter if he didn’t look like he’d kill someone, but I don’t think that’s causing you an identity crisis,” she commentated, glancing at him. “He’s not that hot.”

It … wasn’t the reaction he had been expecting.

“I thought you were-” He cut himself off.

“There’s more than gay and straight, Merlin,” she told him with a small arch of her eyebrows. “But it’s not about that, right?”

She … seemed casual, genuinely casual – which was strange, because she had been defensive about everything personal until now. And sexuality was very personal.

“What?” she asked with a small snort. “Don’t tell me you’re totally fine with gay people but not with all the other.”

“I am … simply surprised,” he answered, having trouble finding the right words. “That you revealed such an information to me.”

“It’s not my fingerprint,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “And it’s also not going to give you access to all the files that exist about me, so what?”

“Nothing,” he said with a shake of his head.

She was right, naturally, and yet … it was nothing he had seen coming and perhaps the surprise worried him more than he wanted to admit.

“Anyway,” she went on, calmly, tapping her finger against her cup. “What’s it about? The article, I mean?”

“Didn’t you read the headline?” he questioned.

She gave a careless shrug. “Hadn’t exactly bothered.”

Merlin bit back a sigh, slowly exhaling through his nose. “There has been a second explosion,” he told her. “It took place in the hotel we visited yesterday.”

The look on her face grew stern, but she only nodded, thinking.

It wasn’t the reaction he had expected – again – and he felt like he was understanding her less and less from minute to minute. Perhaps, however, his opinion of her had already been so set he hadn’t thought about changing it. It was a mistake he shouldn’t have made.

“It’s not totally surprising,” she said then with another shrug as if she wanted to play it off, act like it meant nothing at all to her.

“Why isn’t it?” he asked with a frown, leaning forward a little, putting his hands on the table – he wasn’t close enough to cause her discomfort … he hoped; he wasn’t intending on making her uneasy.

“Well,” she said, tilting her head, hesitating then as if there was something she didn’t want to say, which wasn’t unexpected, because there seemed to be a lot of things she wasn’t telling him. “It’s a bit difficult, but let’s just say, I would have been more surprised if they had left it at one explosion and some random amateur.”

His frown deepened.

“Look,” she went on. “People have tried killing me before. They’re usually more persistent and efficient than that.”

“I don’t think it’s just that,” he replied, weighing his words again, because there was tension in her voice, indicating that she wanted to change this topic as quickly as possible.

Darja shot him a brief glare, then tapping her fingers against the table one more time.

“It’s not that important,” she said but he had a feeling it was entirely as important as he thought it was.

Merlin drew in another breath, pushing up his glasses.

Darja simply arched her eyebrows at him, another question hanging unspoken between them.

“What do we do now?” she asked after a moment, running a hand through her hair. There was no trace of emotion left in her now, like nothing had ever happened. It wasn’t making him uncomfortable, it was just … concerning him. In a way. Because hiding feelings like that didn’t speak for a healthy mind, couldn’t.

“I … am not sure,” he admitted, not wanting to.

She watched him for a moment, before leaning forward a couple of inches. “Well, if they wanted to kill me, they could have done that properly by now,” she said. He had assumed, she would make a comment about the weakness he had shown.

“I mean, they knew where I was staying,” she continued, a small smile tugging her lips, making him think she had done it on purpose … or perhaps she was simply amused. “They knew what I could do. They still send that guy.”

“Yes,” he said. “It rather appears, they want you to … stay away.”

“As stupid as it sounds, it might be just that,” she answered. Her smile was more barring teeth than smile. “So, big question, why would they want me to get off the job so quickly?”

“Perhaps they figured, you’d have a personal interest in hunting them,” he suggested.

“Yes, _now_ , but they blew up the first apartment before that,” she argued. “Why?”

It was the key question. Unfortunately, it was also the toughest to answer.

“They should know I’m not backing off that easily,” she said then, taking a second, looking at him again. “No hitman would, really, because everything is about reputation and I’m not letting mine get ruined by some asshole.”

He simply tilted his head to a nod, since he had figured the business worked like that, although he had also briefly considered that she simply was generally very much concerned about her reputation.

She was about to say something but before she could get that far she snorted. “As another option,” she said, probably not meaning any of it. “You could also make a list of all the people that hate you enough to want you dead. And you could also make a list of all the people who know that much about you and your organisation.”

“I suppose, those would be very short lists,” he answered after a moment of consideration.

“I didn’t mean it,” she answered flatly.

“I’m aware,” he told her. “I considered it anyway.”

Surprise crossed her face, briefly, vanishing again just as quickly.

In the new silence, he finished his cup of coffee and put it back down, while she picked up her phone.

“Hey, so,” she began, drawing his attention, looking up from behind the device. “I found out a friend of mine – he’s also a hitman – is here. And he’d meet me, tell me what he knows, whether he figured something out. I’m gonna meet him and there’s nothing you can do about it. Though, you might still want to come along, for reasons?”

Merlin blinked, needing a moment to notice the question.

“And that would be all right by him?” he asked.

“He’d probably not want you to see him,” she answered. “He’s, well, careful with these things. But I guess he wouldn’t mind if you … I don’t know, stayed around a corner or something.”

“You guess?” he questioned and she gave a shrug, but her expression stayed serious.

It wasn’t a guarantee and currently, he did have plenty of reasons to distrust her and friends of her, and yet … it was an option, a chance. Something. And he still had nothing.

He ended up nodding slowly.

“Great,” she said without any enthusiasm. “Let’s go.”

“What do you mean?”

Darja rolled her eyes. “What I said,” she replied. “Let’s go.”

“You didn’t mention you wanted to meet him now,” he answered, his frown growing deeper.

She just gave another shrug like she didn’t care. “I think that’s the least important deal,” she said, drumming her fingers against the table again.

He sighed, apparently giving in with that gesture, because there was a twitching in her lips.

“Let’s pay first though,” he said and she gave him another amused smile.

“Alright,” she said, her eyes glittering with something that wasn’t quite mischief.

She leaned back, slipping her phone into the pocket of her pullover, the smile continuing to linger on her lips until after he had paid.

When she put on her jacket though, it had softened, grown into … something else, something more natural.

Merlin didn’t dwell too long on it, closed his coat instead because it had gotten colder.

Darja walked on ahead.

She didn’t say anything, didn’t tell him where they were going, but he knew London well enough to recognize where he was.

It was getting dark by now, the sun sinking deeper on the horizon, bathing it in deep red and warm orange and setting the windows aflame.

Street lamps turned on, one by one.

They continued for a couple of minutes until he found himself between skyscrapers and tall residential building, the darkness washing over them, filling the alleys.

Darja slowed down, the last rays of sunlight catching on her skin, making it seem nearly golden on her cheekbones, but her expression was hard.

She motioned him to wait, putting a finger on her lips.

He nodded without thinking much about it, after all … he had come this far, going back now would be a mistake.

She turned around, taking the next turn and vanishing then. The noise of traffic was muffled between the buildings.

The night wrapped around him, leaving him standing there, suddenly not so sure any longer.

Her steps were quiet, barely audible. They stopped.

“Hey,” she said, her voice soft, softer than he had ever heard it.

“Hi,” a man replied. There was the shuffle of clothes. “How are you?” He also had a Russian accent, heavier and stronger.

There was no verbal answer; he could imagine her reaction just fine though – a simple shrug like she didn’t care but there was always more to it.

“So-” she went on, the clicking of a lighter following. “You know anything?”

The rushing by of a car drowned the answer, if there was one.

“Come on,” she said, sighing. “Anything?”

“What do you expect?” the man replied with a snort. “It’s not like I know everything.”

There was more silence or perhaps they were speaking too quietly for him to understand. Merlin couldn’t tell.

“Sorry,” the man said although he didn’t sound sorry at all.

She didn’t answer.

Again, steps, and a couple of seconds later, Darja was standing in front of him. The darkness made the shadows under her eyes, the tension of her jaw, the grim line of her mouth, stand out more.

Slowly, Merlin shook his head, drawing in the cold air that threatened to get stuck in his throat.

She nodded towards the way they had come from.

He returned the gesture, following her, when she sat into motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, irregular update schedule.


	9. Theories

The resignation hadn’t left the next morning. Instead, it had grown to the point where he feared it would crush him.

He didn’t know whether there was anything to do, anything that could be done; could being the important word in that sentence. It was … a problem, mildly put; realistically speaking it was a catastrophe.

Slowly, he drew in a breath while he kept those thoughts to himself

His office appeared foreign to him – too big, too dark, although the sun had risen hours ago, with a sense of immediate threat creeping up on him.

Merlin didn’t like it, mainly because it were vague feelings. He had never been the kind of man to get distracted by these so easily and let them influence him, yet, it was exactly what was happening.

He let out a sigh.

Darja raised her head to study him, having arched an eyebrow, done pretending to be busy with her phone. She was lounging in the arm chair in front of his desk, her legs swung about one rest and her back leaning against the other one.

Her choice of clothes was the same as it had been yesterday – oversized pullover, jeans, trainers – but she still didn’t look like anyone else would. There was nothing relaxed about it, nothing calm, nothing … he didn’t know. There was just something drawing his attention, something out of place, something that didn’t quite fit the picture.

Her eyebrow wandered up further.

“What?” she asked with a small snort. “Do I look that bad?”

“On the contrary,” he said. “I was simply wondering how you manage to seem to stick out, no matter what you wear.”

“Must be my charms,” she replied with a dry twitch of her lips. “They’re deadly or so I’ve heard.”

He frowned at her. She meant it as a joke, but he didn’t find it funny.

She gave him a humourless smile.

It was banter, exchanged comments without attached personal insults. And it was … nice, in a way, since it eased the tension. Somehow.

A polite, three-part knock interrupted his thoughts.

“Come in,” he called.

The door opened.

Eggsy entered.

Merlin tilted his head, nodding at the agent, before motioning him to sit down.

The young man hesitated for a moment before sinking into the other chair.

Darja barely glanced at him, then studying the clouds outside, running a hand through her hair. Then she was still again, the only movement of her body the rising and falling of her chest.

The agent looked at him. There was the burden of hope in his eyes.

Merlin took a seat as well.

“The goal is to receive information,” he began. Every word appeared out of order, out of context, out of meaning.

Darja fixed him under her gaze. Her calmness was strange, especially in contrast to yesterday – he didn’t think it was because she had caught up on sleep, since these shadows under her eyes hadn’t vanished, these shadows that didn’t belong there, that were too dark to be normal, and there was a restlessness in them he couldn’t explain.

Her lips twitched and she opened her mouth as if there was something she wanted to say, but she shut it again. Weirdly so.

Eggsy glanced at her.

“And how do we do that?” she asked after a moment anyway, when the silence dragged on, although she didn’t seem to care one bit for the answer.

It wasn’t surprising, and yet, it was. He figured, she was just better at hiding that impatience now or rather more capable, since she wasn’t busy hiding other things.

He returned her gaze for a moment, thinking, and she returned is – there was something about her he couldn’t quite place, something that didn’t make sense, like always.

“There are old files,” he said, and she arched her eyebrows at him, silently questioning if he was kidding her.

Eggsy only nodded, the doubt obvious on his face.

Merlin felt bad for even suggesting it..

These people couldn’t have done this and not left any trace at all. It wasn’t possible, it shouldn’t be, it couldn’t be – there had to be something. They simply had to find it. It wasn’t that hard.

In theory, that was. In reality, it was … harder than he had ever thought it would be.

The powerlessness was taking up his mind, swallowing him whole. His options were limited. He had never experienced anything like that before.

He was helpless, and Darja was excellent at seeing that, like she knew a little too much about him, like she was a little too good at reading people.

“So,” she said then, her fingers buried in her hair – a mess of curls and waves she had, apparently, just rolled out of bed with it –, looking at him but looking right through him at the same time. “Do you actually think it’s going to get any results or is it another case of doing it for the sake of it?”

Eggsy glanced at her, then at him, questioning quickly replaced by accusing and … an expression he hadn’t seen before.

“What do you mean?” Merlin asked, turning his attention towards the woman.

“What I mean,” she said. “Is: so you actually think looking through some dusted files is going to get any results or are you just suggesting it because you’re hoping there’s going to be some magical solution?” There was no edge to her words – he still felt it, behind his temples and in his chest, where it hurt most, where he knew she was right but didn’t want to admit it.

“Do you have a better idea?” he questioned.

“Hey, aren’t you the one with the rational thought process?” she retorted with a snort. It was a mask. Hidden beneath were the same feelings bothering him – a similarity he wouldn’t have expected.

Merlin didn’t know what to make out of it – this similarity, this kind of sympathy, how everything was falling apart. He had never carried falling apart with the same dignity he carried himself with.

He took a small, deep breath, drawing in the air as best as he could, holding it before releasing it again.

Darja had still fixed her gaze on him – it wasn’t unsettling, not exactly, because she appeared to have stopped blaming him for anything that happened, seeming to be more herself now, whatever that meant for someone who was so trained at hiding everything about herself.

She blinked. The weight stayed on his shoulders.

It was strange – he didn’t have problems with admitting that he was wrong when he was. This wasn’t any different from past situations.

Darja’s opinion didn’t matter, whether she would be smug about it didn’t matter, but he feared, he didn’t want to say it because he was desperate – and that was something he didn’t want to admit in front of Eggsy, possibly not even to himself, since he had no intentions of disappointing people relying on him.

The silence didn’t help.

He was already taking too long to answer, he knew, and there was no good answer; there was nothing he could think of.

Darja put her feet on the ground, the carpet muffling the sound, and he knew that she had something else to say, something he wouldn’t like hearing. She had this talent to always find the right words to make him struggle for a reply, to catch him by surprise.

“So,” she said, placing her elbows on her knees as she looked at him, and there was a hard expression in her eyes, making him wary. “You really think it’s bullshit.”

Merlin would have expected an amused smile, a tuck of her lips, twitching, anything to show satisfaction, but there was only grim honesty he didn’t quite understand. Perhaps, it had to do with the fact that there was someone else around and that she didn’t want to show emotion because of that, but …then it would make more sense if she acted that way around him, since she didn’t seem to care much about either Eggsy or Roxy.

“I would have phrased it differently,” he responded with a sigh, the defeat bitter on his tongue.

Darja rolled her eyes – a simple, annoyed gesture, one too careless for this moment.

He … should be focusing on Eggsy now, apologize. He should. But disappointment was easier to handle when he hadn’t actually _known_ people, hadn’t called them his friends.

He had no intentions of lying.

Merlin still needed a moment too long to turn his head, to ignore her curious glance following him – it reminded him a little too much of actual amusement, like she was only taking interest in his words before twisting them around, before using them against him. It was something he could see her doing, although she was rather the type for twisting daggers. Both were dangerous – pointed, sharp, capable of destroying.

“I’m afraid it is more grave than I made it out to be,” he said then, looking at the younger agent – Eggsy had been expecting it, he could see that, but he could also see that he wished he hadn’t spoken at all. Merlin didn’t blame him. “I’m sorry.”

Darja’s eyebrows wandered up, but the surprise vanished from her face as quickly as it had appeared. He had noticed that before – she wasn’t exactly used to people acting normally. It shouldn’t be astonishing as it was for him. Hitmen weren’t agents. It wasn’t comparable.

Eggsy nodded, taking it calmly – part of it was pretending.

“As it turns out, whoever planned this, has … carefully hidden their identity and any evidence that could lead to them,” he went on, and the agent nodded again. “Which makes it difficult to find anything concerning them.”

Once more, nodding, although there was a harder pull around his jaw, a tenser expression on his face – he was keeping back his emotions, his thoughts, the things he wanted to say. It wasn’t like him at all.

“As of right now,” Merlin continued, the words getting more and more difficult to speak because he couldn’t help feeling like he had failed at his job, at the essential part of it, at being Merlin, but … he hadn’t actually failed. No had died. They hadn’t run out of time. “There is no lead. No information.”

“Looking through dusted files won’t solve that,” Darja reminded him, quietly, her voice barely audible but he heard her anyway. It … she wasn’t accusing him, she wasn’t criticising him, not exactly at least, she wasn’t trying to anger him – he didn’t know what she was trying to achieve.

“Do you have another idea?” he asked her.

There was the glare he had been anticipating for a while. Perhaps, she was taking it personally now, thinking he was referring to her unwillingness to let him track the mail.

He didn’t bother explaining that he didn’t mean that, that he had given up on trying, that he wouldn’t force her to do anything. This trust, if one could call it that, between them was fickle enough. And, as much as he was tempted to take every chance there was, he didn’t think it would be as easy as that.

She leaned forward, a few strings of her hair falling into her face and over her shoulders, and there was the hard line of her jaw and the grim one of her mouth. It made her look like she was ready to kill, like she had killed too much already, like she would do everything to get out of this. Merlin didn’t doubt it.

“Let’s summarize,” she said in a tone that was neither dismissive nor accusing, rather normal instead, if normal meant anything.

“These people work illegally, probably own a lot of money,” she continued. “Maybe there’s a whole team. At least they have a lot of intelligence and possibilities and they’re not exactly shying away from public attention. And they’re careful.”

“And how does that help us?” Eggsy asked, studying her, despite having been as careful around her as he was around the other agents of the service, naturally distrusting due to a feeling, an instinct. It was a good one.

Darja gave him a simple glance, her eyebrows arched in a somewhat arrogant way, before she leaned back, her shoulders a little too tense. She didn’t have an answer either.

The situation wore down on her as well – she was stuck with it like the rest of them was, and there was no telling how much it was actually stressing her. To him, it seemed that she was uneasy in her skin at times, that her masks didn’t help, that they couldn’t fully hide how she was truly feeling. Which was … surprising.

Silence settled in, briefly, but heavy to swallow and even heavier to breathe in.

Merlin … didn’t know what to say. It was like he had forgotten how to have a conversation, how to apply logic and reason to any given circumstance. It was like he had forgotten how to function properly, like some words and some new feelings had thrown him so much of balance he couldn’t remember all the years of experience he had.

This ‘nothing’ was terrifying and there hadn’t been many things in the past he had found terrifying. Violence was one thing, desperation another. Absolute powerlessness though … it was one of the worst.

He felt so defeated, like he had never stood a chance, like there had never been anything he could have done from the very start – it was sinking his stomach, making a bad taste linger on his tongue, a headache pounding behind his temples.

“Like,” Darja said, drawing Eggsy’s and his attention. She was drumming her fingers against the armrest of the chair she was sitting in, one leg pulled in under her. “Do you have all – and I mean _all_ – the files you have on every case digitalized?”

“No,” he answered, not entirely sure what she was getting at – but there was an idea forming. “The oldest one on our servers are from the early nineties.”

“Let’s just say,” she went on, looking at him. “Your servers get hacked. Let’s just assume that for a minute. There wouldn’t be everything, right? On your servers, I mean. Not every mission, couldn’t be.” She waited until he had nodded. “But the page that listed missions was going way back into the eighties, seventies.”

It made him freeze.

That meant, that someone had betrayed Kingsman long before Arthur had.

Eggsy blinked, at first staring at her, then at him.

“It’s … not impossible,” Merlin found himself saying. It was the most logical explanation. He didn’t want it to be true.

Darja arched her eyebrows at him, and he swallowed.

A couple of moments passed. There was a knock.

“Come on in,” he said, his voice nearly failing him.

The door opened and there was Roxy, not entering, standing at the threshold instead. She was pale, holding a file with white knuckles.

“If you’d excuse me,” he said, rising to his feet, ignoring the glances thrown at him when he left the room.


	10. Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has about 7k, so you might want to take some time before reading it or split it up.
> 
> cw & tw: a bit of angst/self-hate, graphic descriptions of third/fourth degree burns (please don't google it if you have recently eaten or intend on eating soon)

****Things could go better. Yeah, they could, especially this thing here.

She wouldn’t exactly say it was giving her anxiety, but it was, kinda, like too much attention was making her uneasy, like being too close to people was making her want to get away, like nightmares were making her restless.

Darja wished she hadn’t come up with the last thought.

The silence didn’t help, never had, never would – it was the reason she started to think so much in the first place because there was nothing to distract her, nothing she could distract herself with. It felt like this quiet was pushing against her, pushing up all those memories she wanted to keep buried, spilling them and bringing them up.

She drummed her fingers against the arm rest of the chair, the muffled noise not satisfying her. Neither was the gesture. It wasn’t enough to fill the silence.

Obviously, something important had come up and it wasn’t looking like Merlin was going to come back any time soon, so she was probably stuck here with this kid for a while.

Great. Really, great, really fucking great.

Honestly, she couldn’t say why she was angry about it. Maybe she was just angry at everything, maybe she was just angry at herself, maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe this wasn’t time and place to work through emotions.

Simply waiting was something she couldn’t do that easily though. It was – she didn’t know; it was different when she was on a job. She had a purpose then, a goal, something to focus on. Now she had nothing, only time to kill and that wasn’t the same.

Sighing, she dug through the pocket of her sweater, pulling out the pack of cigarettes before putting one between her lips.

The boy threw a glance at her.

“You shouldn’t smoke in here,” he told her after a second of hesitation.

She lit her cigarette anyway, proceeding to snap her lighter shut and take a long drag, filling her lungs with smoke.

Darja exhaled it through her nose, arching her eyebrows at him. “Well, too late, what do you wanna do now?” There would have been a twitch of her lips, an amused smile, if the situation wasn’t as bad as it was.

He studied her for a moment, possibly contemplating what to do, and, honestly, she wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled some James Bond shit, some really exaggerated stunt. He seemed like the type.

Not so surprisingly, he only blinked and looked away – she didn’t miss an emotion crossing his face, something between annoyance and dislike. His luck.

She took another drag. It wasn’t calming her like they always said, but she couldn’t remember the last time smoking had actually calmed her. It was only a habit, a bad and unhealthy one which was enough reason to get rid of it. She hadn’t, hadn’t wanted to, not really able to say why.

The silence returned. She couldn’t say whether she preferred it over a conversation, but she wasn’t going to start one just to find out, because the only thing she’d like to do as of this moment was getting drunk. Or doing drugs. Both sounded good, actually.

The kid was studying her. He kept glancing at her.

The thing was, he looked like … she didn’t know, like she stepped on a puppy, maybe his puppy – not that she would do that intentionally and if she did unintentionally, she’d apologize a thousand times, but … still. He had to know she had killed people, more than she could count, and he had never looked at her like that before.

Sighing, she ran a hand through her hair, turning around towards him when it got too annoying.

“Do you have a problem?” she asked, not … sounding like she had thought she would; she was neither exactly snapping at him but neither was she asking a normal question.

He didn’t reply right away, making her think he wasn’t going to reply at all.

“So, you like being a hitman and all?” he asked then, quietly, with an accent she hadn’t noticed before. It wasn’t the question she had been expecting.

“It’s just a job,” she answered with a roll of her eyes. It wasn’t; it had been a way out, it had been an option she had been given and she had taken it.

“You _kill_ people for a living,” he replied, his voice hovering between shock and … she didn’t know, anger, but anger seemed too big of a word. He wasn’t angry, he just didn’t understand.

“It’s not-” She cut herself off, shaking her head. “Honestly, I don’t care enough to explain.” She shrugged, still wishing she hadn’t said anything at all, because … sure, she could have said worse things, more personal things, but the conversation wasn’t over, she was afraid, and she didn’t want to find out what could slip her.

“Why’d you become a hitman then?” he asked and she glared at him. Unfortunately, it wasn’t intimidating him; she hadn’t assumed it would, he seemed … he seemed a little out of place in his suit and in this building, like he was still kinda new to it but settling in, slowly, and … it was just a feeling, an instinct, like so many things were.

“I didn’t become one,” she corrected him, taking a long drag from her cigarette to stop herself from saying more. “It happened. I was given the option and I didn’t say no.”

The boy blinked. Darja regretted speaking.

“Oh, come on,” she muttered, huffing. “Don’t act like you don’t kill people too. You’ll also get paid for it. Where’s the difference?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again, so hesitant to answer that … well. Shit. Yeah. She knew why. Her morals were fucked up. Always had been, she guessed, growing up like she had, and yet the realization left a bitter taste on her tongue, a thought she couldn’t phrase flashing through her head.

This kid wasn’t an aristocrats’ son but he wasn’t as damaged as she was either, not living between barrels and blades, faked passwords and dollar bills, hotel suites and planes, alcohol and drugs.

She swallowed.

“Don’t tell,” she said then, leaning back into her chair and drawing up a leg under her, filling her lungs with smoke again until she felt like suffocating. “I know.” It exited through her nose and mouth when she spoke. “It’s the morals.” She lifted her shoulders carelessly, lazily. “Well, we can’t all be good examples, can’t we?” A biting smile pulled at her lips, hurting her, but the arrogance was easy to slip back in, familiar, and she nearly forgot about the implication, how she was saying more than she wanted to.

God. Fuck. Why couldn’t she just, for once, think first and talk later?

She would have thought, she learned that at some point during the last decade or so, but here she was, spilling secrets buried so deep she hadn’t even known about them to some kid she didn’t even like – was actively trying not to like and not get liked in return. Sympathies made everything always so hard.

He … was still watching her and while it wasn’t exactly freaking her out, it was strange, at the same time, in a way, because – she didn’t know. She could tell that he was trying to figure out what was going on with her, what she was thinking, yeah, but she wasn’t afraid that he was going to find something, since … shit, she had no idea and maybe that was the arrogance speaking and maybe that was bad, a wrong, thing, maybe she was underestimating him.

“Hey, if you’re looking for advice on how to deal with killing people, look elsewhere,” she snarled, not letting the silence get to her. It had been supposed to be an off-hand comment, a casual one, but it ended up being nothing like that.

“I ain’t-”

She cut him off with a roll of her eyes. “Then why you’re asking?” she retorted, not expecting an answer. “I’m not buying you’re just curious in the things I do, because you probably couldn’t care less.”

Still studying him, she arched an eyebrow further, the gesture more of a habit than intention.

He didn’t reply right away, which was coming as no surprise, because, whatever reasons he had, she was sure he wasn’t actually going to tell her. He didn’t have to and it wasn’t like she was gonna … torture him or something – if he thought she would, that was alright, but she had better things to do than that. Well, not right now, but in general and she wasn’t that much into hurting people, not if they hadn’t done anything to deserve every pain that could be inflicted on someone without killing them.

The kid opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, seeming to think of something but deciding against it last second, starting again.

“You know you don’t _have_ _to_ tell me, right?” she asked, sounding a bit too soft for her tastes, cigarette ashes staining her jeans and the carpet.

“You didn’t have to tell me either,” he retorted, cocking his eyebrow, and, fuck, yeah, she had been underestimating him. A little. It still sucked.

“Yeah, well, shit happens,” she muttered, putting the cigarette to her lips again to stop herself from talking. She had said too much already and she regretted it, but there was nothing to be done about it now and worrying about it wouldn’t help her either.

Darja started drumming her fingers against the arm rest again, her gaze focused on nothing in particular, her thoughts … not exactly existent. She didn’t mind. There could have been worse.

How much time had passed anyway? It seemed like forever, but it couldn’t be more than a couple of minutes, not enough, and it … she didn’t know what it was making her – ‘uneasy’ came closest, she guessed.

Part of her wanted to reverse time and stop herself from ever starting to talk.

She pulled out her phone, glancing at the display. Nothing. Expected but not exactly delighting. Darja put the device away again.

There wasn’t much left of her cigarette and, for a second, she contemplated lighting another one, so that the thoughts wouldn’t get to her, although she probably shouldn’t, health concerns and all. As a hitman, health was pretty important but, then again, Ylvi, Nik, and Elias had been smoking for as long as she could remember.

And it wasn’t like she hadn’t have a thousand options of stopping until now and yet she had never done it. She couldn’t even remember why she had began in the first place, if she was honest.

She drew in another breath, slowly, trying to keep it in her lungs for a while before releasing it, like she had seen on the internet. It wasn’t working.

“How old are you?” the kid asked then.

Darja gave him a brief glance, studying him. She shouldn’t, she should just ignore him because whatever she was going to say, it wasn’t going to improve the situation.

“Older than you,” she replied, not even sure whether it was true. Maybe. Maybe not. She didn’t care.

“How much older?”

She snorted, rolling her eyes at him, brushing off the topic with a wave of her hand. Hopefully, he wasn’t going to keep asking. Really. Age was … she didn’t want to talk about age. It wasn’t that important anyway, didn’t matter when you killed people. Nothing did, really, nothing ever truly mattered. Birth didn’t matter, age didn’t matter, past didn’t matter, future didn’t matter; it only mattered whether you accomplished your goals and whether your were happy – it was what Jack had told her and he had seemed ancient back then, a thousand years’ wisdom inside of him. It had sounded like he had just shared the secret to life and … it hadn’t been hard to imagine that he truly had.

“Too much,” she added after a moment, hoping it would shut him up.

He was looking at her, skeptically, studying her with that nearly-frown on his face, seeming as if he was going to ask, as if he was going to say something. He didn’t, in the end, but it didn’t make her feel better.

Shit. Maybe she should … maybe she should really just go and never come back, never waste a second thought on this again and find another way – she had orders though. And things were never truly as easy as they appeared on first glance, and since this already appeared like shit, it had to be even more shit underneath and-

Maybe she should stop thinking about it, after all, she didn’t have the magical power to just, miraculously, resolve any situation.

Hopefully, this was going to be over soon. Very, very soon.

  


* * *

 

 

His heart beat too fast.  A bitter taste spread on his tongue.

It wasn’t exactly unease, rather concern, since he hadn’t  anticipated to see Roxy that way, so … somewhere between horrified and sick.  Perhaps , it had to do with what she had found out  about Darja.

Surely, he had  assumed there were going to be gruesome information, details he didn’t want to know. He had been very aware that she had killed people, brutally, that she had done much more than that, but he hadn’t thought it would turn out to so bad. And as easily accessible as that, so,  possibly , the reason for the shock on Roxy’s face was a different one after all.

Silence settled in between them, briefly, heavily, a  second too long.

The agent appeared as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t, this fact worrying him more than he could currently express.

Her knuckles had turned white from holding the file  she carried so tightly. It was a slim one, not appearing capable of holding such terrors, but matters rarely looked as bad as they were on first glance.

Merlin cleared his throat. “What did you find out?” he asked, carefully, quietly.  He didn’t want to stress her any more.

She raised her gaze, jaw set and shoulders straight. She was still swallowing a little too hard and her skin was still a little too pale, her eyes still a little too wide for him to think  she was truly all right.

“Right,” she said, slowly, looking at him with an expression that caused more concern to rise up inside of him. “I … have to inform you that Bors went undercover. He was in Moscow when I received his last transmission, saying he was being followed after sending me the documents he found.” She nodded at the file.

His stomach dropped. First, agents didn’t go undercover often, if at all. Second, he hadn’t been there; if he had, he could have – he didn’t know what he could have done, but he could have been there how he was supposed to.  He got them in and he got them out. Usually.

Third, it meant that Darja was connected to someone powerful, influential, past the  normal means .

He nodded, barely, pushing away the thought but it lingered, burned into his brain like acid – he had underestimated the  danger . He had made a mistake. He had brought agents into danger.  Most importantly:  Darja wasn’t  _just_ a hitman.

“I’ll make sure he’ll return alive and well,” Merlin promised, not knowing whether it was the kind he could keep.

“There is no guarantee these documents are even about her,” Roxy said after a moment, hesitating before continuing. “It’s nearly like she doesn’t officially exist.”

“I feared that much,” he replied, his frown growing deeper as he looked at her.

Carefully, she extended her hand, holding the file towards him. Her fingers were shaking although she was trying her best to conceal it.

He took it.

“There is a birth certificate,” she said then. “As well as a school certificate. And … photos.” She pressed her lips together, suppressing … a gagging reflex, he was afraid. “Very, very graphic photos of a burn. Bors had to break into a hospital to receive them. After that …”

He could only nod.  H e wanted to say something positive  instead , something to cheer her up. He lacked the words.

Cautiously, he opened the file.

The first page was, indeed, a copy of a Russian birth certificate. All names and data had been blacked out, except the child’s name, Darja, and the year of birth, 1989.

It was n’t prove of anything, Roxy had been right about that.  M e rlin figured, there had been several girls born in the same year  with the same name – if ‘ Darja’ was her real name.

He turned the page. Next was the school certificate. Seventh grade. It had been issues in 2002, right before the summer holidays in June; last name and exact date of birth blacked out as well.

Glancing at the marks, he bit back a sigh. Nothing extra-ordinary about them.

“Apparently, certificates past this one don’t exist,” Roxy said. “Just earlier ones.”

“What do you mean?” he questioned, already aware he wouldn’t like the answer.

“As far as I reconstructed, the student failed to show up after the Christmas holidays,” she answered, the breaths she drew in too flat. “But the child was never reported missing. No one seemed to care.”

It sounded like one of these cases of mysterious disappearances that went unsolved for decades, if they were ever investigated to begin with.

He felt sick, his head coming up with too many scenarios, connecting  missions he had worked  on years ago to  this.

Perhaps, he was wrong – it was a brief thought, barely held up by any logic. Children didn’t just go missing and never turned up again without anyone ever looking for them. Not under normal circumstances.

Merlin had to think back to the phone call with her ‘boss’, considering what kind of man he had talked to. He wasn’t sure, to be honest, it was hard telling something like this only by hearing someone’s voice, especially if it was such a n emotionless one.

“I see,” he said, his throat dry, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth.

“The photos are next,” Roxy warned him, biting her lip.

He nodded, then taking in a deep breath to  prepare himself, and turned the page.

Loose pictures.  He picked up one.

It took him a moment to realize that he was seeing a human body – a part of it, at least. A leg.

The skin had turned black, peeling away, if there was anything left of it, revealing the flesh beneath – red and exposed, hanging there in pieces. Pus leaked from the wound, bright yellow and sickening. The bones had turned black too, possibly from sooth.

He had never seen a burn this severe, not even in all the years he had been at Kingsman.

Nausea rose in his throat. He tried swallowing it down as he picked up the next picture.

It didn’t help.

They had cut away all the tissue that had been damaged beyond repair – half the leg. Muscles, nerves, blood vessels. Flesh. Even more skin. It had been sutured for the moment, yes, but considering how badly injured this person was, he thought it unlikely that there was anything to save; he would have opted for amputation.

The next photographs showed burns as well, much lighter ones, not going past the skin despite damaging some layers of it.

Surely, Doctor Clark had told him Darja’s scar stemmed from a bad burn, meaning, there had been a lot of surgery to be done, not only the reconstructive kind. She had also noted, it was good work, one they couldn’t replicate with their technology and discoveries.

Merlin hadn’t assumed for even one moment it could have been that bad.

“These photos were in the same file as the birth certificate,” Roxy told him.

There was a part of him that wanted to believe none of this had anything to do with the woman in his office – it seemed impossible for anyone with such an injury to ever walk again on their own two legs, let alone fight.

He swallowed twice to be sure he wasn’t going to throw up. His stomach still twisted.

“Good work,” he said with a tilt of his head, closing the file. He would rather not open it again. The pictures had already etched themselves into his brain either way, not leaving soon.

Roxy gave him a fleeting smile, the serious expression quickly returning to her face, hiding what was bothering her.

Merlin worried about her, about Eggsy – he wanted to be there for them, help them, be the kind of reasonable, more experienced friend they needed in a time like this, the kind of person they came to talk to, the kind of colleague who offered soothing and calming words during rough times, but he felt like he couldn’t be any of that.

He hesitated for a moment longer.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked then, his voice soft and quiet.

She looked at him, not replying right away. He understood her carefulness, he understood her caution, he understood the hesitation to speak the truth, and yet it left him with an unpleasant emotion since … he had wanted to be someone she and Eggsy could trust and he had failed that, it seemed.

“It’s … about Darja,” she said then, picking her words like she expected him to reject the topic right away. “I don’t necessarily like her, but – do you think we can trust her?”

Merlin wasn’t sure he knew what she mean. He figured, the constant need of turning every word, of reading into every so little gesture, of being mindful of everything, was straining, and, ultimately, getting to her. It was something he had neglected. He shouldn’t have.

“I see,” he said, swallowing, trying to think of an answer, of words to say that made sense. “I don’t think she is exactly lying, but I do think she is hiding some things.” It … wasn’t an answer to her question, he knew, but it wasn’t as easy as that. He wanted it to be, he wanted something to be easy for once, because he had lost a good friend barely a year ago and he didn’t want to loose more.

“I’m sorry,” he added. “I can’t give you a clear yes or no.”

She nodded at first, giving him an apologetic smile before shaking her head as if to say it was all right. He knew better than that.

Merlin kept looking for words, for something to say. He couldn’t, he just couldn’t, it wasn’t working. The incapability made him doubt.

Briefly, silence stood too heavy between them.

“Let’s go back inside,” he said.

Roxy nodded, her expression growing serious again.

He turned around, walking back towards the door before opening it and motioning the agent to enter first. Only then he stepped inside himself, closing the door behind him.

There was the smell of cigarette smoke hanging in the air, sticking to the room, as the walked to his desk, sitting down behind it.

Roxy stopped next to Eggsy’s chair.

He placed the file on the table, noticing Darja’s gaze lingering on it a moment too long, nearly as if she knew what was inside.

“So,” Eggsy said. “What now?”

Darja glanced at him, having arched her eyebrows, not saying anything – the latter surprised him.

Merlin looked at the younger agent, swallowing. That was another question he couldn’t answer.

“It’s easy enough,” Darja said. She seemed distant, cold, like she was trying too hard to keep all of her emotions in check. He made a note to ask Eggsy about it the next time he got a chance.

“How so?” Merlin questioned when she didn’t continue – perhaps, it was what she wanted him to do, or perhaps it was … something else; he was starting to see her differently and he couldn’t tell whether he was making a mistake in doing so.

“It’s just finding the mole and taking care of the issue,” she replied. The twitching of her lips he expected didn’t come. “Whatever that means.” To her, it certainly meant killing.

“And if it’s not as easy as that?” he asked, noticing his two agents watching her, then him, a little too close, a little too tense. They seemed to be waiting for something – a reaction, an answer.

“Well, then it’s not,” she said with a careless shrug of her shoulders. “Nothing’s ever truly easy, so if things turn out to be different, they just get dealt with.”

“And if it doesn’t work?” Eggsy cut in, studying her.

“That’s an issue for later,” Darja replied, leaning back, her gaze still focused on the agent as she drummed her fingers against the arm rest of their chair.

Merlin frowned, studying her closer for a moment. There was something that made him stop and consider – it was an ignorant approach, even for her; she was too smart for suggesting something like that. She had to be aware of the consequences, of how everything was intervened, of how one couldn’t ignore everything else.

She knew. He was sure, and yet … there was something else to her.

“It’s an option,” he said, slowly. Darja noticed it, noticed he wasn’t agreeing with her – it was in the way she arched her eyebrows, in her eyes, in the way she looked at him, in the way she seemed to brace herself. “But it also is an ignorant approach.”

She snorted, rolling her eyes like it didn’t matter after all.

“We do not have the luxury of ignoring everything else,” he went on.

“You,” she corrected him, coolly. “You don’t. You have to completely sure.” Since she wasn’t including herself, she thought she had other options, other possibilities – he didn’t think she had.

“Don’t you have to be?” he asked in return.

The tension had grown so strong, he could nearly physically feel it pressing against his chest.

He didn’t understand it, neither he understood Darja. He had assumed he had, moments ago, but then she was so different – and, he assumed, he knew why. This right now, this cold and this anger, this opposing him just because: it wasn’t her. It was who she pretended to be, perhaps, who she wanted to be.

“No,” she replied, hesitating, covering it up with a tilt of her head. “My life’s the only one I’ve got to worry about.”

For a second, he thought he had misheard her. Her voice had been quiet, maybe a bit too quiet, and it was nothing he had imagined her saying without a cruel twitch of her lips, without taking satisfaction in revealing a matter as major as this; she wasn’t doing it for the sake of it. She was doing it to deflect attention from herself.

Surely, Roxy and Eggsy had known that he had to consider the dangers to their lives too. But the way Darja had said it made it sound different, like he was purposefully going out of his way to make sure they would be safe.

She wasn’t wrong about that.

He stumbled for words.

“Do you ever do something else than complain?” Eggsy cut in, his gaze fixed on the hitman.

“If there is something else to do, yes,” she retorted without missing a heartbeat. “But it isn’t looking like there’s anything, is it?” Her tone was sharp, icy, her accent rougher – her expression was hard now, cold, stern.

“Easy,” Merlin said, hoping to stop the situation from escalating.

“I’m not taking it easy,” Darja hissed. “I’m sick of doing nothing. I’m sick of having nothing to work with. All you do is talk and talk and nothing’s coming out of it.”

“You’re wrong,” he argued. “Sometimes, it simply takes time. Plans do at least.”

“Plans don’t help when there’s nothing to plan in the first place,” she retorted.

It wasn’t like he didn’t understand her, but he couldn’t agree with her either.

Slowly, he drew in a breath, letting it out again as he looked at her. The expression in her eyes was still too hard. She wouldn’t give in, he was sure. It reminded him of desperation. She wouldn’t admit it if he asked.

“There is something,” he said then.

“You know what I mean,” she muttered in return, briefly glaring at him. She leaned forward a couple of inches, her elbows balanced on her knees. There was something intense in it, something he hadn’t seen before. It made him uneasy. “How many people work for you again? I’m sure there won’t be _any_ difficulty to find one mole, right? And there surely won’t be _any_ issue planning all the possibilities, right?” There was an edge to her voice, a sharp tone, anger, and yet, she wasn’t accusing him, she didn’t seem to be angry at him, them.

“I didn’t say it would be easy,” he replied, frowning. He had an idea what she was trying to say, however-

She gritted her teeth, the line of her jaw too harsh and too hard. She swallowed the words she had wanted to say, kept them to herself. It looked as if she was trying to bite off her tongue, preferring that over answering. It … wasn’t unlikely, considering how proud she was, but this was a mask she was wearing and there were numerous things buried beneath. It wasn’t his place to un-bury them.

He blinked.

She broke eye contact, her gaze on the pocket of her sweater for a second.

“I’ve got to make a call,” she said, rising to her feet, the excuse sounding as bad as it was.

She didn’t exactly slam the door when she left the room.

It was only then he realized a couple of things, one of them more unsettling than the one before.

Merlin swallowed, the silence suddenly crushing him.

But since giving up wasn’t an option, he simply took a deep breath and sorted through his thoughts before he looked at his two agents.

They studied him, questions he couldn’t phrase bothering them.

“I am sorry,” he said, not knowing what he was sorry for.

“There’s no reason to apologize,” Roxy told him after a moment, softly, but her face expressed more worry than he could bear.

“Yeah,” Eggsy agreed with a small nod.

He still felt like he had to, over and over again, until he was sure he hadn’t failed his job.

“Thank you,” he said instead, tilting his head respectfully.

There was a moment of quiet, a moment of hesitation for him.

“I’ll be right back,” he said then, slowly getting up.

Eggsy and Roxy gave him a brief nod when he left the room.

  


* * *

 

 

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. _Fuck_.

She could keep cursing forever and it wouldn’t change a thing – she wished it would.

It was just … fuck. Everything was a big, goddamned clusterfuck. She was.

There was a tremble in her fingers, not easing with the cigarette, no matter how much smoke she inhaled. Maybe she needed alcohol, maybe she needed drugs, maybe she needed a distraction – just … something, anything, because she didn’t know what to do and that was a feeling she hated with every cell of her body.

There was just – there was just _nothing_ , plainly nothing, and … shit. Shit, yeah, it was scaring her, it was scaring her really badly, because she had always been scared of being power- and helpless and it pretty much looked like she was right now.

And there was another thing she was scared of: people. Of … shit, she didn’t know; she was too deep in this mess already, there was no point denying it, but she had never put it into words before, not consciously, not voluntarily. There was only going down now, since she couldn’t keep pretending that she hated everyone and everything forever; there was no use running, there was no way of hiding.

Darja didn’t remember the last time neither of that had worked – well, no, she remembered, but she didn’t mean-

Shit, she didn’t mean _that_ , but her hands were trembling so bad, she was going to drop her cigarette, she couldn’t breathe, her mind-

She gritted her teeth until her jaw hurt, until she tasted blood, until she felt like she was going to break out her own teeth, before she took another drag, holding her phone tighter with her other hand.

The display stayed dark. She couldn’t say what she had expected. Maybe she had hoped Jack would fix her problems for her, would provide her with a solution to everything, would … do the same he had done years ago.

He wasn’t going to call her back. He wasn’t. She might as well bury her hope and her self-esteem when she was at it. Wishing didn’t change anything, praying didn’t, so she didn’t even try.

Still, … she was angry, angry at herself, because she used to be better at this, she used to be better at her fucking job, she used to be better at not getting breakdowns when all she was supposed to do was stay calm and do whatever she had to.

She closed her eyes, then opened them again.

Things were still fucked up. They hadn’t miraculously gotten better.

Well, shit. Yeah. That was what it was. It wasn’t like she didn’t know, it was just … she didn’t actually know, didn’t want to know – she never had been good at admitting, at dealing with stuff, especially not if it involved feelings, but her feelings had always been a mess, her instincts a bit too fast and careless when it came to trusting people. Years of training hadn’t changed that.

She sucked in a deep breath through aching teeth, the iced air stinging in her lungs. She should be getting up from the top of the stone wall if she didn’t want to catch a cold, but the trees and long stretches of field were creepy, too wide and too empty, so she’d rather not face them.

Darja put her cigarette to her lips again, inhaling the smoke deep enough to fill all of her lungs with it. It still wasn’t calming her.

Her feet dangled in the air, kind of useless. Her hands were useless too, about to freeze solid. The cold kept creeping through her jeans and trainers, through her pullover and jacket, eating through her skin. It wasn’t as bad as heat.

She exhaled, ignoring the steps, the smoke curling through her nose and mouth.

It were Merlin’s, she could tell … for some reason,.

He stopped. His shoes were in her field of vision. She still pretended not to notice him.

“Go away,” she said after a while where he just stood there. It was more of a mutter though, more … she didn’t sound like she had intended to.

“I’m afraid I can’t,” he replied.

She huffed in return, leaning back, balancing her weight on one hand, meeting his gaze with a glare.

“Because it’s so hard to pretend everything’s alright,” she retorted sarcastically, sounding too rough. It was better than her voice giving in though.

He looked at her for a moment, his expression not changing. She hated how she couldn’t do that.

“It is, if nothings is all right,” he answered.

“You’re still doing pretty well at it,” she answered, arching an eyebrow at him.

There was tension in his shoulders giving him away, there were shadows so deep she was sure they were going to swallow him, there was … no, he didn’t look like everything was alright, but it wasn’t obvious either; you had to know what to look for.

“I suppose,” he said with a sigh like he wasn’t proud of it.

She didn’t understand. Well … okay, she did, kinda, because he surely hadn’t been exactly pressured by life or death situations to develop this skill, didn’t exactly have the same need she had – she didn’t even know why she needed to hide every emotion, it just had always seemed … right, it had seemed like the thing she was supposed to do because everyone else did it.

“You know,” she said then. “You can just say when you’re sick of me and I’ll be going. No need for fancy words.” She swallowed the other things of top of her tongue, the things she had already said but wanted to say again – she didn’t want to be here, she wanted to do something, she had no real interest in actually working with any of them.

He looked at for with one of these frowns that were a little too deep, studying her again for a second. Then … then there was a small twitch in his lips, barely moving the corners of his mouth.

What the fuck.

“Do you really think I haven’t worked with people who are much worse than you?” he asked.

“I hoped,” she said, regretting it the moment she had said it, dropping her gaze to her feet again.

She sounded different, she knew, and she knew he noticed it – but she didn’t know how to feel about it. There was more to it than two words, yes, and she didn’t want him to figure it out, but he was smart, too smart.

At first, there was silence. And she was glad about it although she was probably going to over-think, although she was going to lose herself in scenarios, although she was only going to feel terrible.

Merlin shifted his weight to one leg, slowly, carefully.

She tensed anyway, not really knowing why (but she knew, she always knew).

He took a step to the side, standing next to her then, more than an arm’s length away, before he leaned against the wall.

“Why do you want to be disliked so badly?” he questioned.

She looked up, finding his gaze on her. She took a long drag so she didn’t have to answer right away.

“I’m a hitman,” she said like it mean anything.

“You think it makes it easier,” he concluded and it should be scaring her, because he was a stranger, a clever stranger who already knew too much about her anyway, but it didn’t – that was scaring her.

“I like to think that, yes,” she muttered, the smoke leaving through her nose and lips. “It’s an excuse – no, it’s a reason not to get attached.”

She finished her cigarette, stubbing it out on the stone next to her. “I still get attached too easily,” she added, quietly, hoping he didn’t hear her, but she shouldn’t have spoken then.

“And-” She cut herself off before she could make another mistake. There was no use in bearing all of this to a man she didn’t know – to anyone, really. She hadn’t told Elias, she hadn’t told Nik and she sure as hell hadn’t told Ylvi. It wasn’t that much different with Merlin.

“You’re scared,” he said, all serious and stern, but the expression on his face wasn’t hard, neither was his voice. It was giving her a funny feeling in her stomach. Like she was going to throw up.

“You’re also scared,” she retorted. It had only been a hunch until now, a feeling but she knew it was true the moment she said it, because he seemed older, more tired, because he wasn’t trying to deny it.

He just stood next to her. It wasn’t so bad.

The air still stung on her lungs, she was still freezing, she still felt horrible.

“What’s the lesson of that?” she asked, not looking at him at first, then slowly turning her head. “Does that make us two people who’re very much afraid but don’t actually want to admit that because they think it’s bad? Or does that make us two stoic people who should know better than that?” It was strange to speak of ‘we’.

“Perhaps,” he said, looking right past her before his gaze focused on her. She hadn’t noticed how brown his eyes were, pale in the gray light, a little darker than normally; she wondered how hers looked to him. (Not that it mattered; that was, what she was telling herself.)

“Perhaps?” she asked, arching her eyebrows.

“Perhaps,” he repeated. “Neither of us are who we want to be. And, perhaps, that makes us more similar than we would like.”

Her mouth was dry. She wanted to think of a witty comeback, something, anything, but she couldn’t, because … well, shit, he was right, obviously. Her first instinct still was to deny it and pretend it wasn’t true.

“Maybe,” she said with a lame shrug, nothing of it covering it up well enough. “Does that mean you’re more honest than you usually are?”

“Yes,” he said after a tense moment, letting go of a breath held too long. “I don’t want to be.”

“Neither do I, but here we are,” she said, running a hand through her hair.

There was silence, where they looked at each other, watching each other, and she nearly expected it all too feel uncomfortable, uneasy. It didn’t.

“I could use your help,” he said, making her arch her eyebrows at him again.

“You’ve got a hint,” she pointed out. “You’re smart. You’ve got people you can trust and who trust you in return.”

“Yes,” he said with a nod. “But it’s not more difficult than that.”

“Nothing’s ever easy, I guess?” she suggested with a sigh that took the tension she had been storing in her body with it when she let it out.

“I’m afraid so,” he replied, another, this time sympathetic, twitch in his lips accompanying his words.

She hesitated. “So … you mean it?” It was a stupid question because he wouldn’t ask if he didn’t, but … it was hard to imagine anyone would ask her to stay.

“Yes,” he said. “You could use something to do, if I’m not mistaken. And I could use the help.”

It was different than it had been a couple of days ago. She was free to say no and go, in a way, and it wasn’t so bad, in a way, she guessed, though there was guilt eating her now, gnawing at her.

“Alright,” she said, feeling a twitch in her own lips. It hurt.

Merlin nodded.

There was something making her breath a little easier, a little better.

She pushed herself from the stone a moment later, slowly sliding down, standing next to him for another moment of silence that was too long.

It was alright. Kinda.


	11. Changes

****Eggsy and Roxy appeared relieved when he re-entered his office, quickly hiding that emotion though.

It didn’t exactly hurt, but there was still a short pain behind his ribs, inside his skull, a thought crossing his mind – this might was the most dangerous situation they had ever been in. Last year had been dangerous as well, surely, and none of them had known whether they would survive and save the world. Back then, he had trusted every single person who worked for the service. If he did that now, it could be the downfall of everything he had worked so hard to protect.

Merlin quietly closed the door behind him, looking for words to say, not finding them. The truths the conversation with Darja had left him with made his tongue heavy.

Eggsy straightened his position, the rustle of his suit not quite breaking the silence.

Roxy studied him. The concern was still present on her face.

“You can take a break,” Merlin said then. He had considered it for a couple of moments, twisting the letters back and forth, trying coming up with something else. He hadn’t.

There was a matter he had to be sure about before focusing on the task at hand. It was a foolish thing to do, he was very much aware, because, he knew, when he asked Darja if these files were about her, she wouldn’t answer. She wouldn’t tell him what truly had happened, she wouldn’t tell him how she got her scar, she perhaps wouldn’t even tell him whether his theories were right. He wouldn’t blame her.

The two agents looked at him in confusion, blinking, not seeming to understand.

“Are you sure?” Eggsy asked, a small frown appearing on his face. “Everything all right?”

It was a question he should be asking them since they hadn’t been agents for as long as he had. They hadn’t experienced situations like these – he didn’t either, but he had dealt with similar before. It helped.

“Yes,” Merlin answered with a small nod, too surprised to have replied right away. “I am all right.” He wasn’t though, not really; he was okay, he could handle it.

They didn’t fully believe him, and he wished there was something he could say to convince them. Usually, he was good with words, knew how to use them, which to use when, but whenever it came to personal things, he stumbled and forgot all about it.

During the years, that had been enough reason to swallow it down and not view many situations as personal, if any. Now … it wasn’t working any more.

“There is simply something else I need to clarify first,” he said, offering the explanation as some sort of comfort.

Roxy seemed to understand. And she didn’t seem to like it.

Eggsy studied him again, sceptically this time.

There was a brief moment of silence where he thought he had to say something but he didn’t know what. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to divulge any other information, no, it was just … there was guilt eating him, guilt towards these two agents. He was afraid of neglecting them, of not paying as much attention to them and their worries and struggles as he should, of not doing enough for them.

Then their expressions softened, just a little, enough to miss it if he hadn’t been looking for it, the gesture accompanied by a nod.

Yet, they remained silent when he went over to his desk to receive the file. There were glances though, questioning ones, exchanged between the two of them.

He left the room, pulling the door shut behind him, letting out a breath he had kept for too long. Merlin studied the brown cover, swallowed, before setting into motion again and walking through the building, towards the room where Darja was staying.

He knocked, waiting.

“Yeah,” she just said, her voice muffled through the door.

Briefly, he hesitated, then pressing down the handle and stepping inside, closing the door behind him.

He had been expecting to find her on the bed. She was on a table instead, leaning against the wall, her legs crossed, watching him.

He stopped mid-breath.

Nothing about it should surprise as much as it did.

She didn’t look different. There still were the hard lines to her jaw and mouth, her cheekbones still seemed too high and sharp, her eyes had the same intensity that had made him uneasy before. It didn’t now.

Hesitation clung to him.

He swallowed again, taking a step into the room and then another, stopping next to the table, mindful of leaving at least an arm’s distance between them. Carefully, he put the file on the table like it could crack under the weight of ink on paper.

Darja eyed it for a second. When she shifted her attention to him, she arched an eyebrow.

“You said there was something you had to ask,” she noted.

“Yes,” he replied with a small tilt of his head, inclining it to a nod. “It has to do with this file.”

“I’m going to take a wild guess and say it’s personal,” she answered after a short moment. “It’s about me.”

“Yes,” he confirmed, wondering where she knew, but, then again, she was intelligent. She had probably figured it out.

She sighed. It was a heavy one, dropping her shoulders an inch, barely easing the tension in her.

Darja pulled the file towards her, picking it up and opening it, then flipping through the copies and photographs without any change of expression.

“You know I can’t tell you the truth, right,” she remarked casually, studying one of the pictures closer than he had looked at all of them combined.

“I do,” he answered.

“Then what are you hoping to achieve?” she asked, looking at him as she closed the file and put it down next to her.

The question sent him stumbling for an answer, the words stuck in his throat, his brain suddenly empty of any thought. Her reaction surprised him, her carelessness surprised him, her casualness surprised him – it had been tearing him apart and making him sick, worrying him.

Merlin took a chair and sat down. “I wanted to be sure about something,” he said.

She arched her eyebrows, crossing her arms. “About what?” she questioned.

“I know you’re not going to tell me what happened,” he stated, slowly. “But I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to that girl.” He nodded in the direction of the file. “Whether-”

“You’re thinking about human trafficking and brainwashing,” she cut in, plainly, flatly, no trace of anything in her voice.

“Yes,” he said although his confirmation wasn’t needed. “I wondered if that is what happened to you.” His words felt like shots, the silence after them deafening.

Darja was looking at him, something in her eyes he hadn’t seen before, lips half parted as if she had wanted to speak but forgot about it.

“It didn’t,” she said after a second, shaking her head, sounding rougher, hoarser. “It didn’t happen.” She didn’t elaborate. He didn’t ask her to.

There was another moment of silence, more difficult to bear.

“Have you been wondering why I’m a hitman?” she asked, twisting the fabric of her sweater back and forth between her fingers.

“No,” he answered. “I didn’t. Have you?”

“No,” she said. “I know why. It’s not like I have regrets.” There was a shrug, ike she didn’t care about that either but Merlin was sure there was more about it than she let on. She wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important to her.

More silence, this time making the air so heavy it was gradually crushing him.

He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know if there was anything to say at all – he felt like there was, something, anything, but he had no idea where to start and he didn’t know whether the things he was going to say were appropriate.

“Well,” she said then with a tilt of her head, studying him again. She stopped herself, cutting herself off.

Merlin watched her for a moment longer, waiting. She didn’t continue. And … he was hesitant to ask because he didn’t want to make her uneasy and he didn’t want to stir up things he shouldn’t.

“What is it?” he asked, quietly, keeping his voice levelled, because … he didn’t know. Darja wasn’t the kind of person to be scared so easily, he supposed, but she was so genuine now, not hiding behind a mask, that he feared he would end up scaring her. It was a stupid thought, he was sure, but being true made him feel vulnerable and he imagined, it did the same to her.

“I wondered something,” she said, brushing a few lazy curls behind her ear. They didn’t stay there. “Why do you care so much about what happening to a child over a decade ago?” There was another question hidden in there, a ‘Why do you care so much about what could have happened to me?’, and he had no answers.

He wasn’t an empathic man, had never really been. He couldn’t be. Being overly empathic would make him incapable of doing his job.

It wasn’t sympathy what he felt for Darja either; it had more similarities with how he worried about the well-being of his agents. But she wasn’t one of his agents. She was … someone he barely knew, someone he partly understood, someone who wasn’t who they pretended to be. She was neither enemy nor ally and he didn’t have a word for it.

“I had to think of missions I worked,” he answered. It was the truth, part of it certainly. It still sounded like an excuse. “Children were being kidnapped and brainwashed into doing whatever their captors wanted.”

“And you thought, my boss is that kind of person?” she questioned, an amused twitch to her lips – Merlin wouldn’t call it that, but he had figured, her sense of humour was differing quite a lot from his.

“I considered it,” he said, not sure why he sounded like he was defending himself. Maybe he was. Maybe she wasn’t accusing him of anything.

She leaned back, the smile fading from her lips.

“What would you have done if I hadn’t denied it?” she asked. “Or if you didn’t believe me?” She paused. “Because … you do. You believe me. And you don’t really have a reason to.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. Perhaps, he wouldn’t have done anything. Perhaps, there would have been nothing to do. Perhaps … he didn’t know. He was Merlin. He had duties and responsibilities, he had people to look out for; Darja wasn’t one of them. Yet, here he was.

She nodded briefly, then fixing her gaze on a point over his shoulder.

It felt like there was more to say, like there were so many matters unspoken that needed to be talked about. He didn’t know if he could. They were … personal, so to say, linked to emotions and thus inappropriate.

The silence was heavy with many of them, words and sentences, neither fully phrased or formed, just hanging there unfinished, barely existing outside of his mind – he couldn’t breathe easily inside of them. They suffocated him.

Still, he took a deep breath, looking up. He met Darja’s gaze, both of them lingering in the moment a second too long, hesitant to speak; it was too easy to say the wrong thing now, too easy to grab words from the air around them and make them real.

Neither of them did.

He cleared his throat. “Let’s go back,” he said.

She nodded, slowly uncrossing her legs and sliding from the table.

They shared another glance before they left.


	12. Raleigh

****He had never expected it would end up being that entertaining to watch them; in fact, he had anticipated nothing fun to come out of it at first, since he had thought, there were more important tasks for him to do. Now, he was coming to understand that he had been wrong. Who else but him – aside from his superior, of course – would notice if anything went off track?

And there was something amusing watching people struggle, none of them having a chance to figure out this masterpiece of a plan they were caught up in. There was some satisfaction in it, he had to admit that, there was satisfaction in watching them get closer and closer to the inevitable doom, to the point of no return from where everything would finally fall apart, including Kingsman.

He bit back the smile threatening to spill over his lips. There was no one here to see it but him, there was no actual reason to hide it except that it was too soon to celebrate. He had been told as much, more than once, on more than one occasion.

He took a sip of the whiskey, setting the glass down on the table in front of him.

He had never been sadistic, and this wasn’t sadism either, after all, no one was suffering. Yet, but they’d all hurt themselves.

It had all started with Arthur anyway, with a choice he hadn’t seen coming. Only thinking about it had a bitter taste to it, something hard to swallow.

Arthur had chosen, out of all trainees, a girl. A _girl_.

That old man had been out of his mind.

It seemed, Merlin was too; apparently, it was a disease sticking to leadership in this organisation. One more reason to get rid of the service and raise a new one.

Sighing, he leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes, glancing at the time. He was to wait for the hitman his superior had hired, even if that person was late by several hours. Now, _that_ was a boring task, because he was already stuck here for two hours and had run out of things to do an hour ago. Then, he had decided to watch some of the feed being transmitted to his laptop due to a little trick, something he had smuggled into the Kingsman system when Merlin had been busy. It was disappointing he still hadn’t noticed.

He let out a sigh, not yet closing the laptop or the feed.

There always had been waiting, yes, and when he had been younger, it hadn’t been as much of an issue. It had been for the mission, for the greater good, for the service. Now, it was for a goal he couldn’t await reaching, although there was no possibility of speeding up the process of it.

With another sigh, he emptied his glass before reaching for the bottle to fill it again, proceeding to lean back in his chair.

The room was a small one, though big enough for a desk and chairs. After all, professional appearance meant a lot, even if it was just for a meeting with a hitman.

Time was only ticking by slowly, sluggish, seeming to take twice the usual amount. Perhaps, because he was waiting for a reasonable amount to pass so he could get up and leave.

Maybe that was the reason he was only a subordinate for now; maybe it was a skill he had yet to learn and this was his opportunity – so it had been him who had been tasked with this conversation, this negotiation. He had been trusted, entrusted.

It took another hour until there was a knock on the door.

He closed his laptop the very same second, ready to get up – a reflex he had recently developed. Then he calmed himself. If it was the hitman he was expecting, he could surely bear to wait for a few moments longer.

First, he took a deep breath, then standing up and straightening his suit. Appearance was important. He was in control here.

He crossed the room, the silence interrupted by another, clearly impatient knock that made him wait for another moment before he pressed down the handle and opened the door.

The man facing him was as tall as he was himself. He had brown hair and dark eyes though, glaring at him from the shadows. He was holding himself out of the light coming from the hallway, out of a direct line of fire, no matter from where someone was deciding to shoot.

As far, as intelligent.

“You going to let me in or not?” the hitman asked, a faint accent carrying over. “If you wanna figure out the details of a contract in a hallway, that’s gonna be your issue.”

There was an edge in his voice, but he would have considered him dangerous either way. This person wasn’t to be underestimate, but, of course, he’d never made such a mistake.

He swallowed the words he wanted to say and stepped inside, motioning the man to enter, glad about carrying his weapons beneath his suit. The hitman hadn’t come unprepared.

Having made sure the door was shut, he walked back to his desk.

Apparently, the other one preferred standing.

He crossed his arms behind his back, returning the gaze much more reserved, much more levelled, waiting for the next step.

“Very well,” he said then with a sigh, giving in first, despite not wanting to.

There was another glare thrown his way like he had personally insulted him.

“Get to the deal you wanted to discuss,” the man said, not missing nearly snapping at him.

Gritting his teeth, he took the file out of the drawer, handing it to the man across from him. The desk was the only thing separating them and in case of a fight, he was sure it wouldn’t do much to protect him.

The hitman frowned and glanced at him sceptically, then opened the file to flip through it.

“You know you’ll have to pay me extra, right?” he asked, briefly looking at him before returning his attention to the papers. “Last time I got involved with Russians, I nearly coughed up a handful of their bullets.”

There was a comment about carelessness and skill on the tip of his tongue. He swallowed it.

“I’m sure the adjustments to your payment can be made,” he said instead.

The man nodded, now dropping to the chair. “Now, tell me about the details,” he said, sounding professional all of a sudden.

Greedy bastard.


	13. Discomfort

****This was … unusual. Kinda. In a way.

Slowly, she drew in a breath, holding it for a moment before letting it out. Even the air seemed different and – and she didn’t know, she wasn’t out of her mind and she wasn’t out of her wits, she was just a little out of her comfort zone.

It wasn’t the first time she was feeling uneasy in her own skin, it wasn’t the first time she was uncomfortable, but … there was Merlin; she had never been good with people.

It wasn’t panic yet but she had yet to interact with more people, she had yet to say something, and she was so sure she was going to fall back into old habits.

Darja drew in another breath and then another, keeping it in her lungs before releasing it, trying to calm herself, steady herself, ground herself. The air kept getting stuck halfway and … she didn’t know. She didn’t have the words for it. She didn’t know where to start. She didn’t know where to stop.

She wasn’t really thinking and at the same time she felt like she was already overthinking – in her head, it was all pure confusion, it all didn’t make sense, she didn’t know anything.

It was starting to drive her crazy, piece by piece, she was pushing herself further and further towards another panic attack and she hated it. She hated feeling young and stupid, like she had never grown out of it.

Alright. Alright. If she really thought everything was so bad, she wouldn’t be doing any of this. After all, she had done that before, taken a step back, said no, and left. (That had never ended too well, but that was because she didn’t know how to cope and … that was an entirely different story.)

Merlin glanced at her, briefly, then studying her like there was something he wanted to say. He didn’t, not right away, turned away instead and they continued in silence.

When he looked at her again, she caught his gaze, the two of them sharing another one of these moments where she forgot to breathe and couldn’t phrase a single thought.

“How are you?” he asked in a voice that made her think he already knew.

She shrugged, drawing up her shoulders and dropping them again with a small sigh, the truth sitting on her tongue too easily.

He studied her, she looked away.

The hallways were still the same, she couldn’t tell them apart even if she tried. And she did, a little, not much, because it wasn’t about escaping anymore.

Biting her tongue, she stopped herself from checking her phone again, then considering smoking for a second, but that wouldn’t help her either, so she didn’t do it. There was nothing that could give her the peace she was looking for because she was afraid of being herself, of being vulnerable – she had been once. It had scarred her pretty bad.

The pair of doors they were approaching looked familiar, so she figured they lead to his office where the two kids were surely waiting.

Merlin slowed down, hesitating a moment too long like he was going to turn around and say something, ask something, tell her something. Instead, he opened the doors slowly, entering first. She followed him, hoping to … kinda vanish, to not draw too much attention since she didn’t know how much she could handle.

When she raised her gaze, she discovered that the room was empty. It didn’t really make the situation any better or worse.

The silence returned, heavy, too big to fit into here, crushing her. Part of her wanted to express all the feelings boiling up inside of her, but she didn’t have words for them, neither in English or in Russian or in any other language she knew, so she swallowed them down, pushed them out of her mind until she could form a coherent thought again.

She sat down in one of the arm chairs close to the door, drawing up one leg under her. Merlin took the other one.

The physical distance was … nice. Welcomed. Maybe she needed it to start it all out, to learn to be herself again or something – she had never forgotten it, she had just pretended to be someone else.

She stopped biting her tongue when the copper taste of blood filled her mouth.

“So, what’s this about?” she asked, catching his gaze.

“What do you mean?” he asked with one of those frowns on his face, his voice a little softer than before, she thought – it send her heart racing.

“I mean-” She caught herself, not really knowing what she was supposed to say. Well, yeah, she knew what she meant, but … she didn’t know, she had just stopped and her head was so empty, and the more time passed, the more awkward everything got, and, shit, she was doing it again, she was already thinking too much again.

“I mean … what are you planning on doing now?” she asked but the words didn’t seem right, didn’t seem to fit – they were slipping her and she was too self-conscious about her Russian to use it.

“I thought,” he said. “That, as a next step, we should re-consider how to approach the situation.

She nodded. It sounded logical enough.

Briefly, she thought about asking something else. She didn’t. She didn’t want to appear impatient and she didn’t want to give him any wrong impressions – Darja had no idea why she was worrying so much about what he was thinking of her. In the end, it didn’t matter. It shouldn’t. But things were never as they were supposed to be, eh?

She dropped her gaze to her hands in her lap, forcing them to stay still this time. She wasn’t nervous, so she didn’t want to appear that way, yet she needed something to do when her thoughts were running wild.

There was a noise, steps, the door opened. She felt bad for the relief.

Two people entered. It had to be the two other agents since she didn’t think Merlin would be as calm as he was when had been someone else.

For a moment, she wondered why she was trusting him so much, why she was relying so much on the reaction he showed – it wasn’t surprising that she could read him, she could read a lot of people like an open book, but … still.

She didn’t look up, only briefly glanced at them when they sat down on the couch opposite from them.

“I suggest,” Merlin said, his voice heavy enough that she didn’t know how he was capable of speaking at all. “That we deal with this mole quickly.” He sounded different now, more formal, like he was trying to be all professional again as if it would help with anything.

She kept these words to herself, swallowing them down until they were hot in her stomach, threatening to come back up – she wanted to tell him there was no use pretending he had everything under control. Maybe her reason was selfish; maybe she wanted to tell him since she felt uneasy when he was keeping his mask around other people but she wasn’t – perhaps it was different, perhaps these two kids were really important to him and he didn’t want them to see him fall apart.

The bitter taste in her mouth stayed either way.

The boy and the girl nodded slowly at his words, waiting for what was to come next. They were disturbed by the thought of someone betraying them, she could see it in their eyes and the way they tensed.

Darja didn’t know anything about betrayal like that.

“Meaning,” Merlin went on. “We have to figure out the motive.”

“You know that boils down to being speculations, right?” she asked.

Why did a motive matter so much anyway? Where was the difference between a guy stealing millions of dollars from people trusting him because he was a greedy bastard and a guy who went on a murder spree because it was fun? She didn’t see it but neither she had killed someone who hadn’t deserved it.

Merlin looked at her, thinking longer about a reply than he usually did. “I do,” he said.

The kids blinked in surprise, exchanging a short glance.

It had come just as unexpected to her – maybe she had been wrong about him, maybe he hadn’t pretended at all, maybe he was genuinely trying to keep everything together.

There was a question she should be asking now, she should be asking why he had suggested it then, but she didn’t, not right away, because … she could see he didn’t like the topic. Because he seemed to have an idea. Because he seemed to fear for something to be revealed.

She knew that feeling, that was why she hesitated to begin with; there were other people now, she didn’t know his boundaries and she didn’t want to overstep them. He wasn’t overstepping hers, it was only fair to return that favor.

“I don’t think it’s such a bad idea,” the boy said into the silence, trying to be casual about it. He wasn’t; it was obvious he had noticed something was off but he avoided addressing it.

“I mean,” he quickly went on, his accent coming through stronger when all the attention shifted to him. Darja felt a pinch of sympathy. “Nobody just wakes up one day and thinks, yeah, let’s kill some people.”

Darja put one elbow on the arm rest of the chair, leaning her head on it as she looked at him, running through every word she knew in search of the ones that didn’t sound that aggressive.

“There’s gotta be some core motivation, right?” the boy went on as if he had sensed her hesitation.

“Some people’s core motivation is spite,” she remarked, drawing up her eyebrows in question while keeping her voice leveled.

“What I mean is,” she went on with a small sigh, shifting her weight and sitting up in the chair. “People do things out of the pettiest motivations, so I don’t know if there’s any use in trying.”

The kid blinked, once, twice, looking at her, studying her, like … she had just told him the earth was flat or some shit. There was surely surprise about it, that much she could tell, and she didn’t know how to feel about it – was she that different? Did she sound that different?

Did it matter what they thought of her?

Darja had no idea who she was lying to here; it had always mattered what people thought of her, maybe too much, and although all of this was supposed to be temporary, temporary was beginning to look like a long time.

“I think, what he’s trying to say is that, if we manage finding out why someone would do that, it would be easier figuring out the rest,” the girl cut in, quietly, calmly, still choosing her words but not as carefully as she had before.

She wasn’t wrong but Darja had never cared about reasons, so she failed seeing why it was so important to everyone, after all … it didn’t matter why you did something. If you murdered someone out of love, it was still fucking murderer.

Maybe it was different for people who hadn’t grown up around hitmen, maybe it was different for people who had lived a pretty normal life. Maybe. Probably.

There was a brief moment of silence where she didn’t know what to say, where none of them knew … she guessed, she couldn’t know for sure. The important thing was that no one talked and that the silence was making her uneasy because it got her thinking and thinking was bad.

“Where do we start then?” she asked after another moment before it got too much, drumming her fingers against the arm rest of her chair.

“Well, what could make someone want to kill an entire organisation?” the boy wondered.

That … wasn’t really true – she avoided looking at Merlin since it wasn’t her place to say anything about it.

He cleared his throat as if he wanted to say something. He didn’t, he just kinda stopped once they looked at him, the words stuck in his throat.

When she turned her head in his direction, she could see the traces of horror lining the shadows on his face.

“Merlin, you all right?” the boy asked, sitting up and tensing, but she barely glanced at him.

He hesitated to answer, seeming like he couldn’t, like the shock was still sitting so deep, the image she had summed with a few simple words etched into his brain like some kind of nightmares, some kind of very, very bad nightmare.

“It was not only about destroying Kingsman,” he said then, carefully, too quietly, and … Darja felt bad for ever mentioning it, because it was, in a way, her fault he was so horrible – she had no idea where that empathy was coming from, but he wasn’t half bad and … It was just a feeling and she had never been good at doing anything about them.

There was worry now, she could nearly feel it, but she wasn’t looking at the two kids. She felt like they could already see how guilty she was – she didn’t know what she was guilty for, she had only been honest and it would have come out either way sooner or later, and she hadn’t felt bad for blurting it out back then because it had shut him up and it was what she had needed at the time, but now … now there was so much different.

He was looking at his folded hands and the floor, trying to gather up all the courage needed to go on speaking. It seemed hard. Difficult. Impossible. She had a pretty good idea how he was feeling. There were things she couldn’t talk about either.

He managed looking up, looking at the two agents for a moment – it didn’t seem to make it any easier for him, since … there was guilt, she realized, he felt guilty for something, and it was crushing him.

Then he met her gaze. Darja arched an eyebrow in question, in a silent question that was hanging between them – she couldn’t put into words what she was asking, what she was offering, what he was asking of her.

Merlin nodded, a small gesture with much more weight than that, he was giving in with a heavy breath and hesitation because he understood he couldn’t do it.

It surprised her. She … she didn’t have any words to express the turmoil of feelings inside of her.

“My job wasn’t as easy as just killing people,” she said then, looking at the two agents, slowly, carefully – she didn’t know what she was afraid of but she knew death and torture were harder to bear for those who hadn’t grown up around it. “While my client wanted me to kill all of you, they were pretty insistent that Merlin watched.”

Her words shocked them the moment they left her lips, and they looked at him, looking for conformation. He could even really nod.

Darja felt out of place – she had seen and experienced a thousand things worse and she couldn’t bring herself to care. And she didn’t like that, because … she just didn’t, she wanted to jump out of her skin, it was just … it was as if she was missing an integral part of being a normal human being. The thought left a bitter taste.

The boy swallowed, licking his lips like he was about to say something – he didn’t speak right away, couldn’t.

“That … changes things,” the girl said, the words slipping her before she really knew that she had said them.

Merlin nodded, slowly, looking so horrible she wanted to say something comforting but she didn’t know any comforting words. Even if she did, she would still be wary of people, of the people around her and … it was bad, she knew, and she wanted to change but instead she only seemed to fall back into old habits – maybe she was too harsh to herself, change took a while and it wasn’t easy and yet …

“But why would anyone want to do that?” the boy wondered.

Darja shrugged.

“It seems personal,” the girl added and Merlin nodded again – she got the feeling that he knew, that he had an idea. The realization was hitting him hard and she felt like the only one who could really see it, she felt like the only one who knew there was more to it.

Was she supposed to say something, did he want her to, should she? She knew how bad it could be, how much it could backfire and go wrong.

She also knew he was trusting her and she didn’t want to misuse that trust and … maybe she just didn’t want to make another mistake when she had made so many already, maybe she should stop thinking about it, maybe she should start thinking before acting now, maybe – _she didn’t know_ , she was pushing herself into a corner, with her back to the wall, and she couldn’t run.

Slowly, she drew in another breath, barely keeping it in her lungs before releasing it, opening her mouth to speak but the words got stuck in her throat, choking her.

“You have an idea, don’t you?” she asked then, her tone soft.

He turned his head to look at her, the movement a little too fast, and she saw it, she saw it all – the shadows and the hesitation and the speechlessness. She didn’t know what could horrify him that bad, she only knew that you could hate people a lot, that you could develop a hatred so deep it swallowed you whole because they had made you scared once. You were angry, you were furious, you weren’t thinking.

Merlin wasn’t angry.

He wasn’t scared either. He was tired.

His gaze flickered to the two kids before he gave in again – Darja wanted to tell him he didn’t have to, but she didn’t know if it helped, she didn’t want to draw any more attention because she was barely dealing herself.

“I do,” he said, holding still, holding too still, not looking at any of them anymore and … it was bad. It was very, very bad.

“It is … a longer story,” he went on, carefully, like he didn’t want to.

She didn’t understand why he wasn’t doing it then – maybe he valued the greater good, the good of the mission, just something else more than his own well-being.

“When I was young,” he continued, drawing in another breath, every word taking every single ounce of strength he had.

The kids exchanged glances; she wanted to tell him to just stop, but all she did was screaming inside her head, no sound ever leaving her lips, as if she had suddenly turned mute.

“You know you don’t have to do this, right?” she managed to say.

It was common sense to her, sure, but to him – she couldn’t tell, he seemed to push himself a lot. Not that she didn’t do that, sure, but she knew her limits and boundaries, she knew that she didn’t have to do something if she really didn’t want to. She wasn’t sure if anyone had ever bothered to tell Merlin.

Maybe it was also a generation thing, maybe it was simply another thing Jack had taught her, maybe it was something her friends had taught her.

Or maybe Merlin simply didn’t think he was – it wasn’t a good thought.

“I know,” he replied, yet looked like he had only realized now that it was a valid option for him.

Darja nodded, humming in response, not sure whether to reply – she felt like she had already said more than she wanted to, had already expressed that she worried, that she had noticed what was going on with him, that she understood him.

“Yeah, take it easy,” the boy muttered, the expression on his face hovering somewhere between shock and concern, something she couldn’t put into words.

Merlin looked at him, slowly nodding, just … she didn’t know. He seemed to be fighting – thoughts, memories, emotions, words, everything.

It was just – she wanted to tell him it was alright, because it was, because there was nothing wrong with being careful and taking a step back.

She was sure these two agents were trusting him, they wouldn’t complain if he kept something to himself for once especially since they had already seen how hard it was for him.

It should be driving her crazy, not knowing things, but it was making her restless, it was making breathing hard because the air was getting thicker with all of the unspoken words, it was all just … getting too much.

There was another pause and – fuck, she didn’t know why she was suddenly so uneasy, but it sucked. There was an icky feeling, right beneath her skin, under her arms and legs and fingers, something heavy settling on her shoulders.

It was getting personal and she didn’t know how to deal with that; she didn’t know what made this any different from her conversation with Merlin earlier because it wasn’t different except for the presence of two more people.

Yeah, maybe that was the problem. Since she wasn’t doing so well with baring herself to people.

“I was young once,” Merlin said like it was some kind of shocking reveal. It wasn’t, everyone had been young once, some just remembered that time more fondly than others. “And … I’ve made mistakes.”

He sounded … like he regretted it, like he regretted making mistakes, but that was bullshit, that were just impossibly high expectations he had concerning himself. She was familiar with perfectionism and the crushing fear and anxiety that came with it, the obsessing over doing everything right up to the point where you failed at everything because you thought, if you couldn’t do it perfectly on the first try, there was no point in doing it at all.

“You know that that’s natural?” she asked him before she had thought about it, before she had considered that these words could sound way harsher than they were meant to – she was glad her tone was soft, calm, yet it felt like her voice was going to break any second because there were buried memories of being young and feeling guilty for mistakes that weren’t her own, for things she couldn’t have prevented even if she tried.

The two kids exchanged a glance, nodding as if they agreed with her.

“I do,” Merlin answered but he sounded like he didn’t, he sounded like he hadn’t understood what she was trying to tell him.

He took a deep breath, the air trembling in his chest. It was making her worry.

“I was recruited into the service early,” he went on and the way he said it made her stomach twist like it was made out of barbed wire. “I was reckless.”

There was a story coming and it wasn’t a good one and she didn’t want to hear it – Darja didn’t know why it was bothering her so much, really, she was a hitman, she had heard worse than that.

“I thought, I was good,” he said. “But it was a difficult time, I was new to coordinating missions and technology wasn’t as well advanced as it is today.” He swallowed, pausing before continuing, briefly, so very, very briefly, like, if the silence lasted too long, he wouldn’t be able to speak anymore.

It ached in her chest, behind her ribs since she knew the feeling, since she remembered how hard bearing these stories was. She had done it once, twice, years ago when she couldn’t talk without crying.

“It was supposed to be a simple spy mission,” he said. “Some work uncovering a mafia family who was rumored to have connections to people with nuclear warheads at their disposal.” He took another breath. “I collected the information, I send an agent in. Things went wrong, but he got out. When he came back to London, his family had been murdered. He blamed me.”

Yeah, that sounded exactly what she had feared he’d say. It hadn’t been his fault, it sounded like something the mafia would do, but how the fuck was she supposed to tell him?

“He died a couple of years later on another mission,” Merlin added.

She swallowed, nearly choking on the questions she had to ask to be sure about this, on the questions she didn’t want to ask.

“Did you find his body?” she asked after a moment.

He looked at her, confused, blinking, not seeming to understand what she meant – then he did, she could see it in his eyes, the resignation, she could see him … no, he wasn’t falling apart, he was … she didn’t want to know.

“No,” he said, the possibility hanging between them.

Darja hesitated, not wanting to continue questioning, but she had to, because … she needed to.

“Was this mission set in Russia?”

“Yes,” he answered. “Why do you ask?”

Well, there was a problem. She didn’t know what to tell him without saying too much, after all, the mafia was … careful with these things, so she really had to watch her words and what they implied. Which was hard enough normally, but as of right now …

“Well,” she answered, forcing down the urge to shift in her seat and look away, because that wouldn’t make anything better either. “The thing is, with Russia, you can’t get involved with illegal stuff without getting – at some point – involved with the mafia, so …”

Merlin nodded, yet, she wasn’t sure if he understood, because most people didn’t know what the mafia was really like – not that she was implying that he didn’t know, but … she wasn’t sure.

“So, there’s no one else who could hate you as much as this guy?” the boy asked after a moment, having cleared his throat.

Merlin looked at him, nodding.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You don’t have to apologize,” the girl replied. Darja found herself nodding in agreement.

There was more silence, taking forever, and she had no idea what to do about it again, it was just … bad. Really, really bad.

“Maybe you should take a break,” the girl suggested, the sentence surprising her as much as it surprised Merlin.

Darja didn’t know why she went with him.


	14. Overdue

****As little as he liked admitting it, considering he was a man in a crucial position and, more importantly, he had long passed the age where a turmoil of emotions was supposed to bother him, Merlin didn’t think he had ever done well with feelings and such.

Experiencing them was one thing, noticing them on other people’s faces was another – he had been aware that Eggsy and Roxy worried about him, but seeing it so clearly was crushing him; they worried so much, he thought they expected him to fall apart or something similarly worse.

He swallowed. His thoughts still swirled around his head, leaving him confused; he didn’t need a break, he needed a task to focus on so that he could distract himself from these things that were keeping him from doing his job.

Darja had joined him, now steadily walking next to him.

He had no explanation for why she did, neither for her tried of helping him. There was nothing in it for her, no advantage in the short or long run, and although he had come to realize that she was not the person he had anticipated, this seemed nearly intimate, if it was the right word to use.

There had been a change happening, unravelling just moments ago, and he didn’t consider it bad. Perhaps he should, however … as wary as he should be, he could no longer think of her as someone actively trying to destroy Kingsman in any possible way. He had seen her honest and genuine, he had learned how it looked like on her, and, in retrospect, he could tell when she lied … and she hadn’t lied in a while, even if telling the truth would have hurt less, even if the pain she bore was obvious, even if being honest wasn’t an advantageous trait for a hitman, but, he figured, as a man with not so advantageous traits for a handler, he was in no position to judge.

Her words had sounded egoistic, selfish, but they weren’t, no – he simply had put work first for so long, putting himself first felt exactly like treason on the service and everything he had sworn to protect.

Either way, the story had to be told eventually, and he saw no difference between doing so now or later, expect that, if he had not done it now, it could have been too late. If they were short on anything, it was time.

Yet, there was this burning in his stomach.

“Thank you,” he said then, pushing up his glasses.

She studied him with a sceptically arched eyebrow.

“I don’t think you’ve gotta thank me for that,” she replied with a small snort, burying her hands in the pockets of her pants.

He glanced at her for a moment, nearly expecting an explanation as she tended to give in to the silence when left to it for too long. This time she did not.

They had left behind thick carpets and old wooden hallways, instead now walking on concrete floors and under artificial light, the quiet broken by the unmuffled echoes of their steps that made it even harder to find any kind of words, no matter their nature or language – Merlin did not know which to use, if he could think of any at all and if they did not flee him, leaving him speechless in face of so much to say.

Those he considered speaking he kept to himself, for speaking them on a later date when he had figured out their meaning, when he understood why he did feel the need of speaking them.

He opened the door to the kitchen when he reached it, hoping no one else had chosen this particular moment to stay there.

From where he stood, he didn’t spot anyone, so he stepped aside, letting Darja enter first before following her and closing the door behind him.

She nearly stopped in the middle of the room, hesitating – it wasn’t as much actual hesitation as habit, he supposed, a habit she had gained over the years as a hitman, surveying a room the second she entered it to asses threats and objects she could use for defence or offence.

She moved towards the table after that, while he took two mugs from the cupboard, a small gesture of gratitude. It was unusual, surely, yet, there were a lot of small gesture between them that didn’t mean a lot, that were not much more than simple things but at the same time, he felt as if they did mean much more than any words could ever convey – how she was watching him, how she was talking to him, how he was keeping his distance, how he didn’t bother her when he knew she wasn’t doing well.

There was still coffee left in the pot, not fully cooled down, so he filled it in both cups, handing her one.

Darja had settled on one of the chairs, leaning against the back rest with a shoulder, having crossed her legs, and it appeared as if she had watched him until he had turned around – now she was arching an eyebrow at him in question.

“Do you not like coffee?” he questioned with a frown of his own, his voice quieter than he had anticipated, quieter than he wanted it to be.

“I have a friend who kills people by poisoning them,” she told him as she took the cup, wrapping both her hands around it. “I’m generally cautious about these things.”

“I see,” he said, sitting down in the chair across from her.

“Also, I don’t like coffee,” she added, the statement meant to be casual with a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“Is there anything I can offer you instead?” he asked.

“Alcohol,” she answered in a matter-of-fact voice with another arch of her eyebrows, taking a sip from her coffee. “Sanity. Both.” She shrugged.

He was not sure whether it was meant to be a joke, as strange and weird as it would be, and though he meant asking, he couldn’t – her words sank his stomach and he was sick, there was much more to it.

The silence returned, lasting for a couple of moments, for longer than he had thought he could endure it.

“I’ve got something to say,” Darja said then.

He raised his head, looking at her with a frown. Their gazes met and she didn’t look away; there was something in her eyes he hadn’t seen before – it was an emotion, a profound, deep one, one he couldn’t describe or name, one that made both of them hesitate.

“Go ahead,” he murmured, his voice hoarse.

“Sorry,” she said. Nothing more, nothing less.

“For what?” he asked, quieter and softer but it wasn’t a bad thing.

“I might have said and done things that might have made you uncomfortable,” she replied, her expression serious and … it was another little thing, another truth they told each other, another gesture.

“I see,” he answered, tilting his head to a nod. “I appreciate it, but there is nothing you have to be sorry about.”

She blinked at him in a moment of confusion, then returning the nod, the rest going unspoken again. It seemed to be a constant, one of the few things that was constant about both of them.

Merlin studied her for a moment, then watched the room, returned his attention to the coffee inside his mug before he took another sip – it was nearly cold by now –, his gaze sticking to her again as if she had something naturally drawing his attention.

Now, there was something to her that didn’t fit her, something that was off – he couldn’t tell what it was and he didn’t know what to do about it, he even thought that she didn’t want him to do anything, yet … it was impossible to simply ignore it.

“Is there anything troubling you?” he questioned and she glanced at him, her eyebrows drawn together.

She hesitated and he didn’t blame her; they weren’t exactly the best of friends.

“It’s not that important,” she answered with a shrug, but she looked so tired, so exhausted, so … not entirely but partly broken.

He nodded, accepting her decision.

Darja took a sip from her own mug, watching him over the edge of it as if she was expecting another kind of reaction, as if she was expecting him to pressure her – she was defensive, surely having a harsh reply on tip of her tongue.

Merlin returned her gaze silently as he took a sip of his coffee, another silent question hanging between them, although it was one of he easier ones, one he could answer if it was asked.

She didn’t ask him, instead continuing to watch him, the brown of her eyes pale in the artificial light coming from above them, he noticed – Merlin couldn’t remember ever looking at someone for so long before, not since he had left active fields service at least, and there was something about it past words.

“Did I ever tell you how strange you are?” she questioned then, setting down her cup, her words so quiet and soft he barely heard her; she wasn’t disturbing the silence, she had melted into it. There was calm about it, about her, something he had never seen on her before – she had always seemed restless, impulsive, like the silence was summoning bad memories or feelings, but now … she was nothing like it. It interested him, it drew him to her, it slowed his heart beat as if to match hers.

“I think you did just now,” he replied, not talking much louder than she had, tilting his head.

Her lips twitched, nearly pulling into a smile – something stopped her.

“Yeah, but really,” she muttered as if he had disagreed with her.

And … he did not know what to make out of it; he had always been aware that he was differing from most and there was no issue with that, yet, the way Darja had said it made him think he was truly unique, one in a million, and that was highly unlikely.

“You make it sound like people like me are unusual,” he replied after a moment, weighing his words as he did not mean to cause any harm. “I am simply being myself.”

“Oh, there are lots of people who are themselves,” she answered with both of her hands put around her mug, looking at him, her shoulders too tense. “Most of them just aren’t decent. Or good.” She tilted her head, a string of brown hair falling into her face and it was off-setting the tension in her jaw a little as she pushed it behind her ear. It didn’t stay there. “I think, you truly are one of the good guys, morally and characteristically speaking, and it’s really strange meeting someone like you when you’re a hitman.”

She was speaking the truth, an aching truth, the weight of it crushing him.

“I suppose,” he answered, at loss for words, so much he wanted to tell her, but there was so much to unpack first, so much between the lines to understand first, he didn’t know where to start. “There is no reason to blame yourself though.”

She arched an eyebrow at him.

He returned her gaze with a frown, still not sure what to do, whether to continue speaking or leaving the topic. There seemed to be old wounds here, wounds he had no intention of re-opening, and yet all needed to do that was one wrong word and, he was afraid, he had never been empathetic enough to know when a word was wrong.

But … he knew that this thing they had, starting with this mutual understanding, was intimate, rare, that it was something that he didn’t want to trade.

She gave another shrug, the moment for the gesture to be casual having long passed. Instead it was dismissing, as if she was downplaying the issue, pretending it wasn’t important after all, but it was, and he didn’t know how to make her understand that her problems and feeling mattered – it was the same she had tried teaching him. The irony was bitter on his tongue.

He hesitated, the words slipping him whenever he tried putting them in an order that would make up a sentence.

She had returned her attention to the coffee in front of her, looking at it like it could provide all the answers to all the questions she had and it was making it difficult for him to stay silent.

“Darja,” he said, her name still foreign on his tongue.

She raised her head to look at him, cocking a single eyebrow with an unmoved expression. Merlin knew better than to believe that.

“If you want to talk,” he said, slowly, watching her eyebrow wander up further with every word he spoke. “I would listen.”

She opened her mouth, taking in a short breath, as if she was going to speak, but she closed it again without having made a sound, swallowing, tension in the lines of her jaw and in her shoulders and in the way she held the mug – there was so much of it, he thought she was going to snap with the next word from his lips.

Merlin didn’t know if he dared to, if he could speak at all, after seeing her like this – something about it was making it hard for him to breathe, something was making the words stuck in his throat, something was reminding him of feeling like there was no one he could trust. But Darja wasn’t him.

“Yeah,” she muttered, hoarse. “The thing is, I shouldn’t be trusting you.”

“And I shouldn’t be trusting you,” he replied, soft and careful, speaking without the intention of making it sound mean or harsh, no, he just … it was a simple statement, a fact.

“Well, that’s the issues, isn’t it?” she asked with a crooked smile that was barely tugging at the corners of her mouth, something biting and aching to it – sarcasm, cynicism, underlying pain.

He blinked.

He hadn’t thought of it as an issue yet, in fact, he hadn’t thought about it much at all; he had simply considered it inconvenient for him to trust her despite not having enough reasons to.

For her … it had to come close to the end of the world for her.

“Possibly,” he said after a moment, awkwardly clearing his throat. There was guilt.

Darja didn’t answer, simply studying him for a moment, for a moment longer than necessary, her eyes fixed on him in a way that would have made him uneasy earlier due to the intensity of her gaze, but now he saw past that and … there wasn’t much more than apathy swallowing every other feeling in protection of them.

It hurt too.

“Well,” she said with a heavy sigh. “Guess I’m too deep in this mess already.” It was a silent question, a rhetorical one perhaps that wasn’t directed at him at all, and yet, he felt the need to reply, the need to tell her … he didn’t know what he would tell her, but he would say something, anything, he would …

He opened his mouth, but his words failed him again – she was trusting him and he was trusting her and that was, in all sense of logic, an issue.

“I suppose, we both are,” he said then, none of these words right.

Darja shrugged, wasn’t even looking at him any more as she stared into her cup as if it was holding more than her reflection.

He studied her, perhaps too long, looking for words, for anything, but he didn’t even know if he was truly thinking – there was pain speaking from her posture in ways he couldn’t explain, there was an aching buried so deep he was barely seeing any of it, there was this apathy breaking apart; there was this knowledge he hadn’t been so different once, there was this cold, hard realization that he understood her and it hurt somewhere in his chest, between one rib and the other.

He closed his mouth and kept the words to himself as the silence settled between them, getting thicker and heavier with all the unsaid matters each time. Now, they were only strangers, barely knowing each other, and the things longing to be said were of personal, inappropriate nature.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he glanced at her again – she had gotten paler and he found himself looking for a blue-ish tone on her lips, but there wasn’t anything. Luckily.

Merlin returned his attention to his own mug that had been empty for a while, filling it with thoughts now.


End file.
